Millions of Americans with forgotten brokerage accounts, old savings bonds, or inherited stock portfolios stand to lose real money under a system that lets state governments sell those assets and pocket the proceeds. Reps. Mike Lawler, a Republican representing New York’s 17th District, and Dave Liccardo introduced the bipartisan SAFER Act to stop states from liquidating escheated securities and digital assets. The bill, designated H.R. 8338, targets a gap in state unclaimed-property programs that currently hold an estimated $70 billion in dormant assets across the country.
How states currently handle escheated investments
When a brokerage account, mutual fund, or individual stock goes dormant long enough, states claim it through a legal process called escheatment. Guidance from the SEC’s Office of Investor Education and Advocacy explains that states may take custody of abandoned investment accounts, hold the underlying securities for a limited period, and then sell them, converting the position into cash. Once sold, the state keeps the proceeds in its unclaimed property fund. If the rightful owner later files a claim, the state generally returns only the cash value recorded on the date of escheatment, excluding any dividends, interest, or subsequent gains.
That structure can dramatically shortchange investors whose forgotten shares appreciate after the state’s sale. A stock purchased at $20 that climbed to $80 by the time an owner finally files a claim would still be redeemed at the lower, earlier price if the state liquidated the position years before. The foregone $60 per share never reaches the investor. Instead, the economic benefit of that appreciation effectively accrues to the state, which has no obligation to track market performance or adjust what it owes.
Delaware illustrates how this works in practice. As a major corporate domicile, it is one of the largest holders of unclaimed property, and its Office of Unclaimed Property states that claimants receive only the cash value of securities that have already been sold. The office also notes that it issues an IRS Form 1099-B listing the stock name, CUSIP number, number of shares, and sale proceeds when it has liquidated an investment. That means a person who never authorized a trade may still owe capital-gains tax on a sale executed by the state, while having no opportunity to benefit from any later upside in the market.
For investors, the process is often invisible. Account owners may have moved, changed email addresses, or forgotten about small positions opened decades earlier. Brokerages, for their part, are required to follow state dormancy rules, which can trigger escheatment after a few years of no apparent contact. Once the account is turned over, the owner’s ability to control timing, tax planning, or risk exposure effectively disappears.
What the SAFER Act would change
H.R. 8338 is pitched as a straightforward fix: require states to hold escheated investment positions in kind rather than cash them out. In a press release, Rep. Lawler’s office describes the proposal as a consumer-protection measure aimed at preventing states from prematurely seizing and selling securities or digital assets. Under the bill, states would still take custody of dormant accounts, but they would have to maintain the underlying assets instead of liquidating them for budgetary or administrative convenience.
Supporters argue this would align unclaimed-property practices with basic property rights. If an investor chose to hold a volatile stock or a long-term bond, that decision would remain intact while the asset sat in state custody. Any dividends, splits, or price appreciation that occurred before the owner reclaimed the account would flow to the rightful holder, not to the state. The measure would also extend to digital assets, an area where existing unclaimed-property statutes often lag behind market reality.
The bill’s text, filed in the 119th Congress as H.R. 8338, has been introduced but not yet scheduled for a hearing or markup in the House. Without a committee calendar or public whip count, its legislative prospects remain uncertain. Still, its bipartisan sponsorship suggests at least some shared concern over how aggressively states have come to rely on unclaimed property as a revenue source.
Key gaps in the public record
Despite the headline estimate of $70 billion in unclaimed property nationwide, several basic questions remain unanswered. Public reports typically aggregate all categories of dormant assets-ranging from uncashed checks and utility deposits to mutual funds and individual stocks-into a single figure. There is no widely available, standardized breakdown that separates cash from securities or digital assets on a state-by-state basis. Without that detail, it is difficult to gauge how much potential investment growth is at stake or which states would be most affected by a requirement to hold assets in kind.
Another open question involves operational capacity. Many state unclaimed-property offices were built to manage checks and simple cash claims, not to administer portfolios of equities, bonds, and cryptocurrencies. The SAFER Act would likely force those offices to upgrade systems, custodial arrangements, and expertise to track corporate actions, handle proxy materials, and secure digital wallets. The bill does not, in publicly available descriptions, spell out how those costs would be funded or whether states would receive any federal support to modernize their infrastructure.
There is also little data on how often investors discover that their securities were sold years earlier, or how large the typical gap is between original escheatment value and what the investment would be worth if it had been left alone. Individual anecdotes suggest painful losses, but comprehensive statistics have not been published. That lack of transparency makes it hard for policymakers to quantify the harm or for taxpayers to evaluate how much their governments benefit from the current system.
Until those gaps are filled, the debate over the SAFER Act will hinge on competing intuitions: whether unclaimed-property programs should maximize administrative simplicity and immediate liquidity for states, or prioritize preserving long-term value for absent but still rightful owners. For millions of Americans who may not even realize the state is holding their investments, the answer could determine whether a forgotten account becomes a modest windfall-or a missed opportunity they never knew they had.
David M. Keller is a finance writer based in Columbus, Ohio, covering personal finance and consumer-focused economic topics. He earned his degree in journalism from Ohio University and began his career reporting on local business and economic trends for a regional media outlet. Since then, he has contributed to a variety of online publications, focusing on clear, practical coverage of topics such as cost of living, debt, and everyday financial decision-making.
