Surplus funds are not 'unclaimed property'

What state unclaimed property is

The Texas Comptroller holds abandoned financial assets turned over by businesses — dormant bank accounts, uncashed payroll checks, insurance proceeds, utility deposits. You search a public database and file a free claim. No attorney needed, and no one should charge you meaningfully to do it.

What a foreclosure surplus is

Money created by a specific sale and held by a specific court or county officer, pending a court order releasing it. It generally is not turned over to the state database, it does not show up in a Comptroller search, and it comes out on a petition and an order — not a web form.

Tax sale excess proceeds

Held by the clerk of the court that ordered the sale. Claimed by petition, generally within two years of the sale, after which the funds go to the taxing units. Again, not a state database search.

Why the confusion costs people money

Someone hears 'there might be money from your foreclosure,' searches the state site, finds nothing, and decides the letter was a scam. Meanwhile the actual funds sit in a county registry, and on a tax sale the two-year clock keeps running.

Check both. They are separate systems and the state search is free, so there is no reason not to.