The money and property comes from a variety of sources, such as utility refunds, uncashed payroll checks, unclaimed tax refunds, estates with no known heirs and abandoned safe deposit boxes.

See if you are owed money

It is the responsibility of employers, businesses, estate trustees, landlords and banks to try and track down people who are owed money or who abandon safe deposit boxes. But if those efforts fail, the assets are sent to the state for safekeeping.

Cheryl Gladden, a claims coordinator with the unclaimed property section of the Department of State Lands, said improving technology has allowed Oregon to do a better job of reconnecting people with their money, but much still goes unclaimed. She said the state receives more than $20 million in unclaimed assets annually, and returns about $8 million to those owners.

There are almost 1.4 million separate unclaimed properties in the state database, which dates back to 1967.

At the Department of State Lands, the money is held in the Common School Fund, a trust fund that also receives the profits from economic activity on state-owned land. Interest earned on that fund goes to help K-12 schools.

All states hold unclaimed assets, and the total value of those is estimated at more than $15 billion, according to the National Association of Unclaimed Property Administrators.

Under unclaimed property law, states do not take permanent title to the property but act as custodians and safeguard it for the rightful owner or their heir, the association said on its Web site.

Oregon tries to track down the owners of unclaimed property worth $5,000 or more, but puts the names of anyone who is owed at least $10 on an online searchable database.

The state workers who try to find the rightful owners of abandoned property employ sophisticated tracking software, like the programs used by debt collection agencies, Gladden said.

In one recent Oregon case, two sisters were informed that their mother had left behind a $109,000 bank account, which was registered at an old address. In another, a technology company executive had lost the necessary paperwork for more than $2.5 million in stock options.

(Copyright 2006 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)