How to claim Foreclosure surplus

[jrwriter]

With a little bit of investigation on your part, you may be able to find this information yourself. In many states (at the county level), the foreclosure listings are public record.

What county was your father's property located in? May I assume it is in Queens County? Contact the county assessor to find out how foreclosure proceedings are handled in that county, or call the Residential Foreclosure Office of Queens County at (718) 298-1092 to ask for their advice.

Any foreclosure will legally be handled by a court case and your father and his heirs/family should have been notified by mail when the foreclosure was taking place, although your father may not have been notified if whoever was handling the foreclosure did not know his mailing address at the time.

Do a search on the following New York court case website, using your father's first name and surname as search terms, to see if any relevant foreclosure cases come up with his name:

https://iapps.courts.state.ny.us/webcivil/ecourtsMain

I believe you will find the relevant foreclosure case and you can then visit the courthouse to look at the file to see how the case was handled or order documents from the case by mail.

If you know any attorneys or paralegals or any members of the general public who have access to the PACER federal government database, you could ask that person to do a search, using your father's name as a search term, to see if the foreclosure case is listed there. There is a small fee required for that search.

Do NOT sign a contract/fee agreement with any asset recovery firm unless you can not find the information from other sources, and even then, you should negotiate by suggesting, for example, that they reduce their fee to 10% instead of whatever they are asking for (many such services ask for one third).

@Dandy Don Thanks a lot for the very detailed feedback. I will start my search now to see if I can find out the result of the foreclosure.

 

[jrwriter]

@Dandy Don after searching I was able to find all of the court documents online. These documents where all monies were disbursed to. Also finally it shows the surplus money being deposited with Kings County Clerk office. I guess my next steps will be to reach out to them to figure out the process to recover the surplus funds.

 

[Dandy Don]

Thank you for posting the update, which I was hoping that you would do. Can you tell me approximately what year the foreclosure happened? I forgot to mention that in some cases there might be a deadline (perhaps a few months to a few years) in which the funds should be claimed before the monies may possibly escheat/be transferred to the county or state government, but I hope that this hasn't happened yet in your case and hopefullly the money will still be available to be claimed.

 

[jrwriter]

@Dandy Don Here is another update and answer to your question. The property was finally sold in 2016 and the surplus money was deposited the same year. I called the Clerks Office and the lady working pulled the index number. She also confirmed that there was no other claims on the surplus money, so my father will be going to the the office tomorrow morning. She said he will have to file a claim form for $10 and the process might take up to 9 days. She said her part is fairly quick, but there might be another process he has to go through. I will update again after he gets more info tomorrow. Thanks!