Industry Canada maintains an Unclaimed Dividends Search System. What is that, you ask? Well, if you've ever been a creditor in either a bankruptcy or a proposal under the Bankruptcy and Insolvency Act, and neglected to tell the trustee or administrator how to contact you, there may be a dividend cheque sitting in Ottawa for you.

A dividend is the amount that gets disbursed after the trustee figures out how much the creditors can recover from the financially-troubled company or individual. Sometimes it's just 20 cents on the dollar. Sometimes more. And sometimes less. At last count, there were 66,458 unclaimed dividends worth $11,866,654.

Paying big dividends

The largest single unclaimed bankruptcy dividend account has more than $179,000 in it.

The service is offered by the Office of the Superintendent of Bankruptcy. There's no charge to access or search the database (you just have to register online at Industry Canada's Strategis site). But there is a fee of $30 to claim a dividend. If you think you might be owed money, you can carry out a search through the Unclaimed Dividends Search System.

To Part 7: Old stock certificates