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DC Unclaimed Property Unit (Office of Finance and Treasury, OCFO)

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DC Unclaimed Property Unit (Office of Finance and Treasury, OCFO)

Agency directory page. Legal information, not legal advice. Last verified: 2026-06-02.

Agency

The District of Columbia’s administrator is the Unclaimed Property Unit of the Office of Finance and Treasury, within the Office of the Chief Financial Officer (OCFO). It takes custody of dormant intangible property — including unclaimed surplus reported from foreclosure and tax-sale distributions — for owners and heirs, and locates owners through newspaper advertising, media campaigns, and a free online search.

Official claim portal

Claims are submitted through the web portal; searching and claiming are free. Contact: (202) 442-8181.

How surplus escheats here

Unclaimed foreclosure/tax-sale surplus in the district-of-columbia not claimed from the disbursing party is reported and remitted to the OCFO Office of Finance and Treasury’s Unclaimed Property Unit under the custodial model in escheat-and-unclaimed-property. The District applies a general three-year dormancy (“unclaimed for three years or more”), and the OCFO states there is no statute of limitations on an owner’s or heir’s claim. (Source: OCFO Unclaimed Property, https://cfo.dc.gov/service/unclaimed-property, retrieved 2026-06-02; statutory cite: D.C. Code §§ 41-101 et seq. (Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act) — needs_verification for the exact subsection.)

DC is listed among RUUPA-2016 adopters in escheat-and-unclaimed-property; the custodial taking means the owner’s reclaim right survives the dormancy clock, while binding pre-escheat deadlines sit upstream and appear on the district-of-columbia page (Module 3).

Claiming

Search by name on the portal, file the matched claim through the web portal, and submit proof of identity and ownership; heirs claim through estate documentation. There is no fee and no statute of limitations.

▸ For Former Owners. Search unclaimedproperty.dc.gov by your name — the District holds surplus and other unclaimed funds with no statute of limitations on your claim. Free to file.

▸ For Investors / Operators. DC escheats unclaimed surplus to the District OCFO fund (custodial), not a forfeiture pool — a later owner claim does not cloud acquired title or revive redemption. Confirm the upstream surplus clock on the district-of-columbia page.

Sources

  • {agency, https://cfo.dc.gov/service/unclaimed-property, retrieved 2026-06-02} — OCFO Office of Finance and Treasury, Unclaimed Property Unit; 3-yr dormancy; no statute of limitations; web-portal claims; free.
  • {portal, https://unclaimedproperty.dc.gov/, retrieved 2026-06-02} — official DC unclaimed-property search/claim portal.
  • {internal, concepts/escheat-and-unclaimed-property.md, read 2026-06-02} — DC RUUPA-2016 adopter; custodial-taking framework.

Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. Verify the agency URL and D.C. Code Title 41 dormancy provisions against the current official site before acting. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship.

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