Unclaimed shares and dividends: how to get them back from the IEPF

This affects far more families than it should, and almost always for the same reason: shares bought in physical form decades ago, an address that changed, a bank account that closed, and dividend warrants that quietly stopped being cashed. Nobody was doing anything wrong. The paperwork simply stopped reaching anybody.

How money ends up there

• A dividend is declared and paid to your registered bank account or posted as a warrant.
• It fails: the account is closed, the address is stale, or the warrant is never presented.
• After seven years of this happening consecutively, the amount moves to the IEPF.
• The shares on which those dividends were declared are transferred to the IEPF Authority too. This is the part that shocks people, because the shares themselves are far more valuable than the missed dividends.

Finding out whether you have any

• Check the IEPF portal's search for unpaid and unclaimed amounts, using the name and the company.
• Search under maiden names, initials in every order they might have been recorded, and the names of parents and grandparents.
• Most companies publish a list of unclaimed dividends in the investor relations section of their own site.
• If you know the company but not the details, the registrar and transfer agent holds the folio record.

The reclaim process

• File form IEPF-5 on the MCA portal. It is free. You will need the company name, the folio or demat details, the amount if known, and your Aadhaar and PAN.
• Print the completed form and the acknowledgement.
• Send the physical set to the company's nodal officer: the form, the acknowledgement, an indemnity bond, an advance receipt, the original share certificate if you hold one, and a cancelled cheque.
• The company verifies and sends a verification report to the IEPF Authority.
• The Authority releases the money to your bank account and the shares to your demat account.

If the shareholder has died

The claim is made by the legal heir and needs the death certificate plus proof of entitlement, which means a succession certificate, a probated will or a legal heir certificate depending on the value and the company's requirements. This is exactly the situation a nominee would have prevented, which is worth remembering for the accounts you hold now.