Back in 2014 Kansas was the first state to cash treasury bonds in its possession that have been abandoned. Under the previous rules the State of Kansas could not claim the abandoned treasury bonds due to a lack of legal title. In the year 2000 the Kansas State legislature amended the unclaimed property statute to permit the State to obtain legal title over unclaimed U.S. savings bonds. The two categories of unclaimed savings bonds are abandoned paper bonds and unredeemed bonds. Kansas has been successful at redeeming the abandoned paper bonds but has not had the same level of success with the unredeemed bonds. The State of Kansas is currently involved in a legal battle to also obtain legal title over the absent bonds. This case which is currently in the U.S. Court of Federal Claims is right now in the early discovery stages.
See Mark Friedman, Kansas Begins Rush To Claim Treasury Bonds, Arkansas Business, February 22, 2016.
Special thanks to Brian Cohan (Attorney at Law, Law Offices of Brian J. Cohan, P.C.) for bringing this article to my attention.
