deposit account info

03/30/2011 - 12:06

about 13 years ago i opened a deposit account in a well-known Italian bank in Sicily, the exchange rate was 3500 lire to the pound at the time and i changed a substantial amount of money for deposit. For certain reasons (which i won't bore you with) i didn’t return until recently, i needed the money to carry some legal procedures so proceeded to the bank and presented my deposit booklet. the member of counter staff interestedly looked at the booklet for a while then consulted other members of staff one by one, after some time i was told that; as the account had been dorment for a period of over ten years the state had taken it. i'm sure you can imagine i nearly passed out. whilst i was recovering from this not very good news, i heard one of the other members of staff quietly say something about making an application to the bank head office. After quite some more considerable time spent on the phone to a head office department and crunching away at the computer keyboard, the person told me that they had made an application for the return of the money, that i should provide them with my uk bank account details and go home and sit tight. anyway, after a very nervous short period of time (two weeks), the funds were returned to me, paid into my uk bank account. the reason for this post is for information to other members who may have deposit accounts in italy whom like myself wrongly thought that is was safe to indefinately leave it - my mistake was to believe that things like this worked in italy pretty much the same as uk.

Topic

Tax and Finance

Comment

I did not know (being Italian...) that the "dorment" status applies after only 10 years!!... Must not have been the two 'shortest' weeks of your life, waiting for the money to come back - anyway good to read, at least, about the happy end.

In 2010 Alastair Darling included in his UK budget a 15 year 'dormant' period for assets in all sorts of financial institutions - banks, buildng societies, insurance companies etc. after which period the state would snaffle the money. I think this came into force in summer 2010, and now Cameron is saying he'll use these assets to fund his Big Society bank. (Whether it actually came into force I'm not certain, it might have been one of those promises like guaranteeing UK banking deposits up to £100,00 - which didn't happen, it is still £50,000.) So Italy isn't alone, and their dormant bank accounts are treated in a way quite similar to those in the UK.

glad i'm not the only one giorgiotan, i certainly wasn't feeling myself for that period. Fillede, this is a new one on me... up until recently i read occasional articles in the media stating uk has a very large amount of 'dormant' accounts/assets but never any mention about this. maybe still in stages of being made law.

If you can afford to leave money in a Bank Account with it's minimal Interest for 10 years or more then you probably don't need it anyway. If you had been serious about the money you should have invested it in an ISA or other high interest methods, but to leave it untouched/unchecked for that lenght of time you deserve to loose it.....

correct flip but not that simple. it was never my intention to leave the funds that long, as stated above circumstances, out of my control caused me leave the funds. i tried to phone the bank several times to manage the funds but they would not entertain me over the phone.

I can't see the need for an unsympathetic response to alexcal's thread. As far as I can see, he was not asking for any sympathy as he was just informing us of what may happen with a dormant account and I think we should thank him for the warning. In any case, what members do with their monies is not of our business and certain comments are totally out of order. Sorry, Flip, you must be having a bad day, I guess.

thanks Gala for understanding the correct reason for writing this post - as stated in the title, info for the benefit of community members.

Just to clear up a mis-conception. The state does not actually grab the money in a dormant account. It is always yours provided that you can show proof and there is no time limit for you to claim. It is true that the government can use the money but reserves are in place to repay the rightful owner if and when he crops up. The whole concept of dormant accounts is based around money that will never ever be claimed. An account can be declared dormant anytime from 3 to 15 years. Various banks use different criteria. Well done alexcal and I'm sure that your currency gain over the last ten years more than compensated for any lost "ISA" interest.

Capo Boi, you explain the system more eloquently than i ever could - thanks. Ram, that's very interesting, i'll try to search for the case you mention.

There is a highyl publicised case at the moment of Italians who have had their money 'taken care of' by the State after having dormant accounts, and they are now in court trying to force the government to give it back. The government say its theirs, as they have no paperwork showing who it really belongs to......