What is the time frame before an account becomes dormant in Iowa???

There is no requirement for dormant accounts in Iowa other than the Great Iowa Treasure Hunt. It is entirely up to your bank policy until that point.

After an account has been dormant for 36 months, it must be turned over to the Treasurer of the State of Iowa. Dormancy is defined as having lost contact with the customer. So if the customer continues to receive their statements or other correspondence, you still have contact with them and they are not considered dormant. At my bank, our computer system defines dormancy completely different than state law. Dormancy on our computer system is defined as having no transactions (other than interest)in the past 12 months. Hope this helps. Sheryl

Is there any guidance as far as charging dormant account fees? Is that individual bank policy? Thanks!

That is totally bank policy. We have not charged in the past (due to some system problems) but we are going to start charging here soon.

Can our Bank (Illinois) remove a dormancy code to be able to post a return statement fee and then put the dormancy code back on? The officer at our bank in charge of dormancy says the bank must have contact with the customer to remove the code.

At our bank, system fees do not change the dormancy status. Sorry can't help you out.

We have $5 accounts with minors that have been dormant for over three years. 1) If we don't get returned mail, are they really dormant? 2) Can we charge them the $4.75 for the registerd letter? 3) How else can we deal with these problem accounts?

1)They are not dormant if they have been receiving their statements so a registered letter does not need to be sent. Them receiving their statements proves you have had contact with them. Our bank personally contacts the little accounts and asks them to do a transaction to make it active or close it. They usually just add a few dollars to it or completely close the account. Those little accounts are costing you money.

In order for "not receiving returned mail" to be valid as a reason the account is not dormant, the statements must be sent by first-class mail and must request an address correction on the face of the envelope. In addition, the bank must maintain a record of all returned mail.

I assume you have this process in place if you are saying that you haven't received any return mail?

The reason I mention this is that at a previous bank, someone made the decision to remove the address correction request from the mailing envelopes and we didn't find out until it was time to escheat.