Will you be affected when the government takes funds from dormant bank accounts to fund charities and voluntary groups? If you have funds sitting unused in a forgotten bank account, pension, or prize bond, read the tips on how to claim what’s yours.
Dormant bank accounts
The government has the power to take millions of pounds from unused bank and building society accounts and award them to charities, under the Dormant Bank and Building Society Accounts Act. A good thing, unless of course that money belongs to you.
A bank or building society account is classed as dormant if there has been no customer activity, such as a transaction or query like a statement request, for 15 years. After that time banks and building societies may transfer the money left in the dormant account to a ‘reclaim fund’.
Even then, if you subsequently find that your money has been taken without your permission, you will be able to request the return of your funds. So dormant assets will be returned to their owners if they come forward, and the remaining money will be reinvested in a range of charitable causes.
Tracing dormant accounts
To trace an overlooked or abandoned bank, building society or National Savings account, you can use the My Lost Account website www.mylostaccount.org.uk . This is a free service run by the British Bankers’ Association, the Building Societies Association and National Savings and Investments. Together they represent most of the firms that offer savings and current accounts in the UK.
The lost accounts search covers the 43 banks that take retail deposits in the UK, all 50 UK building societies and all National Savings and Investments products, including the old Post Office Savings Bank accounts.
Trace your lost accounts and savings
Do you have an unclaimed Premium Bond prize? Last year National Savings and Investments – which runs Premium Bonds – said that there were 550,000 unclaimed prizes worth over £30 million in total.
National Savings contacts everyone automatically when they win a prize. But prizes are often unclaimed because people forget to tell National Savings that they have a new address. Sometimes people have forgotten that Bonds were bought for them when they were a child, and sometimes executors are unaware the Bonds are held when someone dies.
If you win a prize and National Savings can’t get in touch with you, they will hold on to the prize until you contact them. Don’t worry, there’s no time limit for claims.
Unclaimed Premium Bond prizes and National Savings www.nsandi.com/products/pb/unclaimedprizes
It can be easy to lose track of a pension if you change jobs through your working life.
The Pension Tracing Service
The Pension Service will try to help you trace a pension even if you’re not sure of the contact details. It has access to information on over 200,000 pension schemes. The database holds details of both company pension schemes and personal pension schemes.
The Pension Tracing Service will use this database to search for your scheme. The service is free of charge click here: Pension Tracing Service – trace a personal or company pension scheme
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