Should you lose sleep over your dormant deposits?

No, you should not, as the law on dormant deposits stipulates that financial institutions and insurance companies should actively search for persons entitled to dormant deposits.

In case they cannot be found, the deposits must be transferred to the Administration of Deposits and  Consignations within a specified period.

Our Administration, which is a federal department forming part of the Treasury Administration of the Federal Public Service Finance, will be charged with the management of dormant deposits and their payment under certain conditions.

To which deposits can the law on dormant accounts be applied?

The Law of 24 July 2008 stipulates that it can be applied to accounts, insurance contracts and safe deposit boxes.

Accounts may include current accounts, deposit accounts and savings accounts. Savings accounts (originating from the former saving books) and security accounts also fall under this term.

The insurance contracts referred to are mainly a number of life insurance contracts made for the benefit of natural persons.

deposit boxes (the traditional strongboxes) which you hired with a bank may also become dormant.

What happens to accounts containing hardly any money?

There is a specific arrangement for accounts and insurance contracts with a balance of less than 20 euros. As the costs of tracing and administrative processing are not in proportion to the balance on the account, it was decided that financial institutions and insurance companies do not have to trace these accounts.

The balances of these small accounts and insurances are transferred to the Administration of Deposits and Consignations without any further information on the holders and may subsequently be allocated to the Silver Fund by royal decree. This means that once the balance on such an account is paid to our Administration, you can no longer recover it since we have no information on the former person entitled.

Exception

Different balances held by the same person with the same financial institution are added up. If you have e.g. a current account and two saving accounts with the same institution and the total of the balances on these accounts amounts to 20 euros or more, the accounts will be traced nevertheless and the normal procedure will be applied.

When is an account considered as dormant?

The most important condition is that no transactions have been carried out on the account during a period of at least 5 years and that in the meantime no contact has been established between the holder of the account (or the person entitled, for example heirs) and the financial institution.

Important exception: When you hold different accounts with the same institution, none of the accounts is considered as dormant if there has been an action with respect to one or several of your accounts during the last five years (contact, transaction, etc.).
 

When is a safe deposit box considered as dormant?

A safe deposit box is considered as dormant when the rent has not been paid during a period of at least 5 years and the bank opened the safe deposit box after cancelling the rent.
 

When is an insurance contract considered as dormant?

An insurance contract becomes dormant when the beneficiary has not acted within 6 months after the insurance company having received notice that the risk had arisen.
 

How are accounts, safe deposit boxes or insurance contracts “woken up”?

The financial institutions and the insurance companies are obliged to search for possible persons entitled or beneficiaries.

First, they have to send a letter to the last known address. If no subsequent reaction is given, they can simplify the search for their dormant customers by trying to trace them in the National Register and the Crossroads Bank.

If a following recorded delivery does not produce positive results, the legal tracing procedure ends as far as the financial institutions and the insurance companies are concerned.

In that case, the dormant deposits (consisting of money, securities, foreign currencies, etc.) together with the accompanying details on the person entitled / beneficiary, are transferred to the Administration of Deposits and Consignations.

There is a special arrangement for the contents of the safe deposit boxes. The financial institution opening the safe deposit box will transfer the money and securities found in this safe deposit box to a money account and a securities account. The rest of the content of the safe deposit box (e.g. documents, jewellery, etc) is kept by the financial institution in a sealed envelope in the name of the client for another 10 years. The Administration of Deposits and Consignations will be informed of this.

However, the Administration of Deposits and Consignations will NOT be informed of the existence of EMPTY dormant safe deposit boxes.
 

As from when are the dormant deposits transferred to the Administration?

Accounts and safe deposit boxes

As from September 2009, the Administration of Deposits and Consignations  is gradually receiving from the financial institutions the money and securities accounts which have been dormant for a period of maximum 6 year, as an account is dormant after 5 years of inactivity (at the moment of the entry into force of the law in 2008), followed by a tracing procedure of 1 year.

The law provides for a special arrangement for the larger amount of accounts which were already dormant for more than 5 years in 2008, providing somewhat more time. More particularly, the transfer of this so-called “stock” will occur in four periods: a fourth part will be transferred to the Administration of Deposits and Consignations by August 2010, 2011, 2012 and 2013 respectively.

Insurance contracts

A tracing period of maximum 18 months is applicable to the insurance contracts as a result of which the first transfers can be expected towards the end of February 2010. A larger amount of insurance monies can be expected towards August 2011.

Can you permanently claim your dormant deposit?

The monies and securities to which you are entitled can be claimed from the Administration of Deposits and Consignations during a period of thirty years. Afterwards, the thirty-year period of limitation is applied and the deposit falls to the Treasury. 
 

Do your monies or securities yield interest when they are registered with the Administration of Deposits, Consignations and Opposition?

They do indeed. The interest rate on the monies is laid down by the Minister of Finances. The interest rate on the dormant securities is kept unchanged during the maturity period. However, withholding tax on movable property and/or administrative charges for a securities account, if any, might be deducted from your final balance.
 

Can everybody (including non-residents) make requests for information or even claim dormant deposits from the Treasury at this time?

You can only access the dormant accounts registers online if your identity can be verified electronically. The identification and authentification procedure can only be accomplished through the insertion of your electronic identity card (or token issued by the Belgian government) in a special cardreader. You will also need the pincode of your eID.

Although the law on the dormant accounts is applicable on all accounts opened in Belgium (residents and non-residents) most foreigners will not be able to access the Dormant accounts Registers online, due to limitations of the electronic identification and authentification procedure.

If you cannot access the registers online, you can ask the Administration of Deposits and Consignations (Dormant Accounts department) to search the registers for you. Please fill in the necessary application form and enclose a copy of your passport or any other form of official proof of your identity. Note however that at present very little information as yet has been transferred to the national Dormant Accounts registers, so we advise you to wait untill at least September 2010 to avoid unfruitful searches at this point.
 

We will keep you informed ...

The information on this website will be updated as soon as we receive more details.