USA Foreclosure Wiki

Florida Bureau of Unclaimed Property (Department of Financial Services)

3 min read

Florida Bureau of Unclaimed Property (Department of Financial Services)

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

Agency

Florida’s administrator is the Bureau of Unclaimed Property, Division of Unclaimed Property, Florida Department of Financial Services (DFS), under the Chief Financial Officer. It takes custody of dormant intangible property — including unclaimed surplus reported from foreclosure and tax-sale distributions — for owners and heirs.

Official claim portal

Searching and claiming are free. Contact: 1-888-258-2253, FloridaUnclaimedProperty@MyFloridaCFO.com.

How surplus escheats here

Unclaimed foreclosure/tax-sale surplus in florida not claimed from the disbursing party is reported and remitted to the DFS Bureau of Unclaimed Property under the custodial model in escheat-and-unclaimed-property. The program operates under the Florida Disposition of Unclaimed Property Act, Chapter 717, Florida Statutes, under which claimants prove entitlement by a preponderance of the evidence. (Source: DFS / FLTreasureHunt.gov, https://www.fltreasurehunt.gov/, and DFS-UP-200, https://www.fltreasurehunt.gov/files/DFS-UP-200.pdf, retrieved 2026-06-02; statutory cite: Fla. Stat. Ch. 717 — needs_verification for the exact general dormancy period.)

Florida (Ch. 717) is a canonical state-custodial example in escheat-and-unclaimed-property; binding pre-escheat surplus deadlines (e.g., clerk-held foreclosure surplus) sit upstream and appear on the florida page (Module 3).

Claiming

Search by name at fltreasurehunt.gov, open a matched claim, and submit proof of identity and ownership sufficient to meet the Ch. 717 preponderance standard. Heirs claim through estate documentation. Note Florida’s specific regulation of paid surplus/unclaimed-property recovery agents under Ch. 717 (see third-party-recovery-rules). No fee to use the official portal.

▸ For Former Owners. Search FLTreasureHunt.gov by your name — Florida holds foreclosure and tax-sale surplus in a state custodial fund under Chapter 717, free to claim and not time-barred at the state level.

▸ For Investors / Operators. Florida escheats unclaimed surplus to the state DFS fund (custodial, Ch. 717), not a county forfeiture pool — a later owner claim does not cloud acquired title or revive redemption. Note the clerk-held surplus deadline upstream on the florida page; Ch. 717 also regulates recovery-agent fees.

Sources

  • {agency, https://www.fltreasurehunt.gov/, retrieved 2026-06-02} — Florida DFS Bureau of Unclaimed Property; Chapter 717 framework; free search/claim.
  • {statute-doc, https://www.fltreasurehunt.gov/files/DFS-UP-200.pdf, retrieved 2026-06-02} — DFS-UP-200, preponderance-of-the-evidence entitlement standard under Ch. 717.
  • {internal, concepts/escheat-and-unclaimed-property.md, read 2026-06-02} — Florida (Ch. 717) state-fund classification; custodial-taking framework.

Disclaimer. Legal information, not legal advice. Verify the agency URL and Fla. Stat. Ch. 717 dormancy and claim provisions against the current official site before acting. Nothing here creates an attorney-client relationship.

Graph View

Backlinks