Every so often, we hear that businesses like ours get called “predatory.” We understand where that comes from, and we’d rather address it directly than pretend we haven’t heard it.
Here’s the situation as plainly as we can put it. When someone falls behind on their property taxes, the county sells the property at auction to recover what’s owed. But auctions don’t stop at the debt — they run until someone bids the price up, and that price is often well beyond what was actually owed. Georgia and Florida law are both clear about what happens to that difference: it belongs to the person who lost the property. Not to the county, not to whoever bought it at auction.
That difference is what’s called surplus funds, or a tax sale overage — and it sits with the county clerk until someone claims it. Claiming it isn’t always simple — a person has to know the money exists, know which office holds it, and file the right paperwork before a deadline. For a lot of families, especially ones going through something as hard as losing a home, that’s a lot to ask for on their own.
This isn’t rare, and it isn’t small. Right now, counties all across America are holding millions upon millions of dollars in unclaimed surplus funds from tax sales — money that’s legally owed to someone, just sitting there because nobody came looking for it.
That’s the gap we work in. We search public records, find the rightful owner, and help them file a legitimate claim for money that’s already theirs by law. We take a fee only if we succeed — nothing upfront, nothing owed if there’s nothing to recover.
We’d gently push back on the idea that this is predatory. We’re not taking anything from anyone. We’re helping people get back something they’re legally entitled to, that they very often didn’t even know was out there. If there’s a part of this story worth a closer look, it’s probably why that money isn’t easier to find and claim in the first place — not the people doing the finding.
We named this company Steward Fund Recovery on purpose. Our job is to look out for people’s interests, not our own at their expense. That’s the whole model: no cost to check, no fee unless we deliver.
If you’ve lost a property to a tax sale or foreclosure in the last few years, there’s a real chance there’s money sitting with your name on it and a deadline you don’t know about. We’ll check for you at no cost — and you’ll only ever owe us anything if we actually get it back.
Think you might be owed money? Reach out and we’ll check for you — it costs nothing to find out.