Safe Deposit Boxes

What This Property Usually Is

After the dormancy period the bank drills the box, an inventory is taken, and the contents are transferred to the State. Tangible items are sold. What remains for you to claim is the proceeds of that sale, plus any cash that was in the box. Items of no resale value are generally not retained.

Documents You Will Normally Need

• Government-issued photo identification
• Proof of your connection to the box — the rental agreement, bank correspondence, or the key
• Proof of the address on the bank’s record
• For a deceased boxholder: a death certificate and proof of your entitlement
• A notarized claim affirmation — required for every safe deposit box claim

What Trips People Up

People expect their grandmother’s ring back. It is important to know before you start that the contents were sold, and that the inventory taken at the time is the only record of what was there.

The Contents Were Sold. What Is Held Is the Money.

This is the part that shocks people, so it is worth stating plainly at the top. When a safe deposit box goes unpaid and unclaimed, the bank drills it, inventories what is inside, and turns the contents over to the State. The Controller then sells the contents at public auction and holds the proceeds.

You do not get the jewellery back. You do not get your grandmother’s rings, the coin collection, or the watch. You get what they sold for, which is usually well under what they were worth to you and often under what they were worth at all.

The Exception Worth Knowing

Documents that have no resale value — photographs, wills, birth certificates, military discharge papers, letters — are generally not sold. Where they were retained, they can be returned. If a box held family papers, say so in the claim: it changes what there is to recover and it is not always obvious from the record, which may show only a cash figure.

What the Record Will Show You

Usually a dollar amount and little else. The Controller holds an inventory taken when the box was drilled, and it can be requested — it is the only way to find out what was actually in there. For anyone claiming a relative’s box, that inventory is often the point of the exercise.

Always Notarized

Every safe deposit box claim requires a notarized affirmation regardless of amount. Treat that as fixed.

Proving a Box Claim

The box was rented in a name at an address, with a signature card the bank held. You prove you are that person the same way as any other claim — identity, and evidence of the address. Where you are claiming a deceased relative’s box, this becomes an estate claim, and the estate documents come first.

• Current government photo identification
• Evidence of the address the box was rented from
• The rental agreement or a key, if either survives — helpful, not required
• Estate documents where the renter has died
• A notarized affirmation

Why This Category Is Worth Checking Anyway

Boxes are frequently rented by one generation and forgotten by the next. Nobody inherits a key they do not know exists. Where a parent or grandparent banked somewhere for decades, a search under their name costs nothing and occasionally turns up a box nobody in the family knew about.