County hunting down foreclosed-upon homeowners to return $16 million

As anyone practicing real estate knows, when a home is being foreclosed upon seeks to recoup what's left an a mortgage, but sometimes winning auction bids are higher than the remaining value of the mortgage and those additional funds go to the former owner.

Many homeowners simply walk away and don't know this to be how it works, so two years ago, Cook County in Illinois (home of Chicago) created a search engine for former property owners dating back to the 1990s to look up if they are entitled to any of the 19 million unclaimed dollars, with the average amount owed to foreclosed-upon homeowners is $2,000.