Could a company that tracks down owners of unclaimed property get the dollar value of what each person is owed from Maryland's abandoned property records?

Plain-English summary

The Comptroller of the Treasury asked the Attorney General whether the Unclaimed Property Section had to withhold the dollar value or description of abandoned property from people who requested that information, typically "tracers," businesses that locate owners of unclaimed property and offer, for a fee, to help them recover it. Tracers needed the dollar figures to know which owners were worth pursuing, since canvassing everyone on the list regardless of amount would be too expensive for their business model.

The Attorney General concluded the value and description had to be withheld. The Public Information Act made financial information about a person's assets, including bank balances and net worth, confidential unless some other law said otherwise, and a list showing how much unclaimed money or property a person had was, in the opinion's view, self-evidently that kind of asset information. The Maryland Uniform Disposition of Abandoned Property Act did carve out two narrow exceptions to that general nondisclosure rule: it required the Unclaimed Property Section to publish owners' names and last known addresses before property was even turned over to the state, and it only required publishing property valued at $50 or more, meaning the fact that someone had abandoned property worth at least $50 was itself public. But nothing in that Act authorized going further and disclosing the actual dollar value or a description of the property, so tracers could learn that a name was on the list and, implicitly, that it cleared the $50 floor, but not how much the property was actually worth or what it was.

Currency note

This opinion was issued in 1992. Subsequent statutory amendments, court decisions, or later AG opinions may have changed the analysis. Treat this page as historical context, not current legal advice. Verify current law before relying on any specific rule, deadline, or remedy mentioned here, including the current text of the Maryland Uniform Disposition of Abandoned Property Act and the Public Information Act's financial-privacy exemption.

Common questions

Could a property-tracing company find out how much unclaimed money or property a specific person had waiting for them in Maryland?
No, according to this opinion. The Attorney General concluded that the dollar value or description of a person's abandoned property was confidential financial information under the Public Information Act, and the Comptroller's Unclaimed Property Section had no discretion to disclose it to a requester who was not the owner or the owner's designee.

What information about unclaimed property was public, if any?
The owner's name and last known address had to be published before the property was even remitted to the state, and the fact that a person's unclaimed property was valued at $50 or more was implicitly public because the Abandoned Property Act only required publication of items at or above that threshold. The specific dollar value and description of the property were not public.

Why did the Attorney General treat the value of abandoned property as private financial information?
Because the Public Information Act made information about a person's assets, including bank balances, net worth, and financial history, presumptively nondisclosable, and the opinion reasoned that a list showing how much money or property a specific person had unclaimed necessarily revealed information about that person's assets.

Could the state ever release this information to a tracer if the general rule kept it confidential?
Only with the owner's involvement. The Public Information Act let a custodian disclose financial information to the "person in interest," meaning the person who is the record's subject or their designee, or, if the owner had a legal disability, their parent or legal representative, but not to an outside business acting on its own.

Background and statutory framework

Maryland's Uniform Disposition of Abandoned Property Act, codified at §17-101 et seq. of the Commercial Law Article, required holders of unclaimed property, such as banks holding dormant accounts, to report and eventually remit that property to the state's Unclaimed Property Section, which maintained lists including each owner's name, last known address, and the monetary value or description of the item. Tracing businesses regularly requested these lists, hoping to locate owners and, for a fee, help them recover their property; because canvassing every name regardless of value would be too costly, tracers needed the dollar figures to prioritize which owners to pursue, and CL §17-325 rendered unenforceable any fee agreement to recover property made within 24 months of the property being turned over to the state.

The opinion's analysis turned on SG §10-617(a) and §10-617(f)(2) of the Public Information Act, which made information about a person's finances, including assets, income, liabilities, net worth, bank balances, financial history, and creditworthiness, nondisclosable unless another law provided otherwise, a rule the opinion had previously applied to hold that the bare fact of owning an asset is ordinarily confidential. Because a listing of abandoned property necessarily disclosed what assets a specific person had, the opinion concluded it fell within this financial-privacy exemption. The Abandoned Property Act itself supplied the only exceptions: CL §17-311(b)(1) required publication of owners' names and addresses before remittance, making that information non-confidential, and CL §17-311(c) required publication only of items valued at $50 or more, which the opinion read as implicitly making public the fact that a listed owner's property met that $50 threshold, but nothing more specific. Two out-of-state decisions, from New Jersey and Oklahoma, supported treating unclaimed-property values as confidential absent an express disclosure mandate. Beyond those two narrow points (identity of owner and the $50 floor), the opinion found no other statutory basis to disclose the actual value or description of abandoned property, though it noted the General Assembly remained free to amend the Abandoned Property Act if it wanted to authorize broader disclosure to help owners locate their own property through tracers.

Citations and references

Statutes:

• SG §10-617(a) (State Government Article), the Public Information Act's general nondisclosure provision for records "otherwise provided by law"
• SG §10-617(f)(2), making personal financial information, including assets and bank balances, nondisclosable
• SG §10-617(f)(3), authorizing disclosure of financial information to the "person in interest"
• SG §10-611(e)(1) and (e)(2), defining "person in interest" and extending it to a legal representative where the person has a disability
• CL §17-311(b)(1) (Commercial Law Article), requiring publication of abandoned-property owners' names and addresses before remittance
• CL §17-311(c), limiting mandatory publication to items valued at $50 or more
• CL §17-325, voiding certain property-recovery fee agreements made within 24 months of remittance

Cases:

• Twiss v. Department of the Treasury, 124 N.J. 461, 591 A.2d 913 (1991), cited for the holding that unclaimed bank account amounts transferred to a state remain confidential and may not be disclosed to tracers
• Merrill v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, 831 P.2d 634 (Okla. 1992), cited for the holding that a tax agency could validly maintain confidentiality of abandoned-property holder reports even absent an express statute requiring it

Source

• Landing page: https://oag.maryland.gov/resources-info/Pages/attorney-general%E2%80%99s-opinions.aspx
• Original PDF: https://oag.maryland.gov/resources-info/Documents/pdfs/Opinions/1992/Volume77_1992.pdf (this opinion appears at printed page 188 of the bound annual volume; Maryland's site does not publish a standalone PDF of this opinion)

Original opinion text

Best-effort transcription from a scanned PDF. Minor errors may remain — the linked PDF is authoritative.

Public Information Act - Comptroller - Certain
Information About Abandoned Property May Not Be
Disclosed

                         November 17, 1992

Mr. Stephen M. Cordi
Director, Comptroller of the Treasury

   You have requested our opinion whether a part of a public record

that discloses the monetary value or description of property reported to the
Unclaimed Property Section as abandoned property must be withheld from
public disclosure.

  For the reasons given below, we conclude that this information must

be withheld from public disclosure.

                                    I

                             Background

   You have advised us that the Unclaimed Property Section

periodically receives requests for inspection, via computer or hard copy,
of lists of property reported as abandoned under the Maryland Uniform
Disposition of Abandoned Property Act, §17-101 et seq. of the
Commercial Law Article ("CL" Article). Among other information, these
lists contain the name and last known address of the putative owner and
the monetary value or description of each item reported as abandoned.

   These requests are usually filed by individuals who are in the

business of tracing owners of abandoned property. The tracers use the lists
to attempt to locate the owners. The tracers then may contract with the
owners to assist the owners in recovering their property, for a fee.1

  As a practical matter, the tracers cannot maintain their business

unless they are able to differentiate owners of significant amounts of
abandoned property from owners of comparatively small amounts.
Canvassing everyone on the list would be prohibitively expensive. Thus,
information about the monetary value of the property is crucial to these
requesters.

                                    II

        Confidentiality and Public Disclosure Provisions

  Section 10-617 of the State Government Article ("SG" Article)

provides that, "[u]nless otherwise provided by law," certain information in
public records must be withheld from public inspection. SG §10-617(a).
"[I]nformation about the finances of an individual, including assets,
income, liabilities, net worth, bank balances, financial history or activities,
or credit worthiness," is made ordinarily nondisclosable by SG §10-
617(f)(2).

   It is self-evident that a list showing how much money or what type

of property people have left unclaimed reveals information about the
"assets" of those people. Indeed, this office has concluded in the past that
the bare fact of ownership of an asset is ordinarily nondisclosable under SG
§10-617(f)(2). Opinion No. 85-011 (April 15, 1985) (unpublished).2

  Thus, unless something in the Abandoned Property Act itself

provides otherwise, you have no discretion in the matter: You must
withhold this personal financial information.3 Accord, Twiss v. Department
of the Treasury, 124 N.J. 461, 591 A.2d 913 (1991) (amounts in
unclaimed bank accounts transferred to the state remain confidential under
New Jersey's Right to Know Law and may not be disclosed to tracers);
Merrill v. Oklahoma Tax Commission, 831 P.2d 634 (Okla. 1992) (even in
the absence of a statute requiring confidentiality, Oklahoma Tax
Commission had validly exercised its administrative authority in
promulgating a regulation maintaining the confidentiality of reports filed
by holders of abandoned property).

   CL §17-311(b)(1) requires the Unclaimed Property Section to

publish the names and last known addresses of owners of abandoned
property before the holders remit the property to the Unclaimed Property
Section. Consequently, such information is not confidential under SG §10-
617(a) and may be disclosed upon request. Moreover, the Abandoned
Property Act authorizes a limited disclosure about the amount of assets.
That is, under CL §17-311(c), the Unclaimed Property Section is not
required to publish "any item valued at less than $50." Thus, the statute
renders two pieces of information nonconfidential: that a person owns
abandoned property, and that it is worth at least $50. We cannot discern
any other information about the property that is subject to disclosure, and
therefore only to this limited extent does "other law" provide an exception
to the nondisclosure mandate of SG §10-617(f)(2).

                                 III

                            Conclusion

  In summary, it is our opinion that the Unclaimed Property Section

is prohibited by law from disclosing the value or description of assets
reported to it as abandoned property, other than to the owner or the
owner's designee.

   Our conclusion about current law is not intended to address the

underlying policy issue. Some of those whose businesses are severely
affected by the lack of information about prospective customers have
argued to us that the private sector has an important role to play in helping
people get their unclaimed property back. If the General Assembly agrees
with these policy arguments, it can amend the Abandoned Property Act to
authorize disclosures that are not now permitted.

                                          J. Joseph Curran, Jr.
                                          Attorney General

                                          Jack Schwartz
                                          Chief Counsel
                                          Opinions & Advice

                                          Sheldon H. Laskin
                                          Assistant Attorney General

1
CL §17-325 renders unenforceable any agreement "to pay compensation
to recover or assist in the recovery of property made within 24 months of the date
the property is paid or delivered to the abandoned property office ...."

2
The legislative history confirms that SG §10-617(f)(2) is meant to
require "that personally identifiable data which is financial in character not be
disclosed, unless otherwise provided by law." Governor's Information Practices
Commission, Final Report at 534-35 (1981).

3
SG §10-617(f)(3) authorizes a custodian to permit inspection of financial
information by the person in interest. As applied to SG §10-617(f), a "person in
interest" is the person who is the subject of a public record or a designee of that
person. SG §10-611(e)(1). If the person has a legal disability, the "person in
interest" would include the parent or legal representative of the person. SG §10-
611(e)(2).