Deposits held by Regional State Administrative Agencies

Members of the public can deposit assets with Regional State Administrative Agencies. Most payments deposited with Regional State Administrative Agencies are cash. Securities and paperless shares can also be deposited.  

There are a wide range of reasons why a member of the public might want to deposit assets, and deposits held by Regional State Administrative Agencies are regulated by a number of laws.

You can make the request in our e-service or with a form. Formsare available at Suomi.fi. A link to the portal is provided at the bottom of this page.

About deposits

Certain conditions must be satisfied before funds can be deposited. The most common reason why you might need to deposit funds with Regional State Administrative Agencies is an order issued by a government agency or a court for you to make a payment to an individual or a business. 

If you are unable to make the payment directly to the recipient, you can deposit the funds with the competent Regional State Administrative Agency instead. This situation might come about for the following reasons:

  • The recipient refuses to accept your payment.
  • The recipient is unable to accept your payment due to, for example, an illness or an absence.
  • Two different parties are claiming to be the rightful recipient and you are not sure which one to pay.

The competent authority is the Regional State Administrative Agency in whose jurisdiction the payment or other transaction, such as a sale of securities, must be executed.
You can therefore place your deposit with

  • the Regional State Administrative Agency in whose jurisdiction the (rightful) recipient resides,
  • the Regional State Administrative Agency in whose jurisdiction the property to which the payment relates is located, or
  • the Regional State Administrative Agency in whose jurisdiction the business that you need to pay is established.

You can check the competent Regional State Administrative Agency from our list of local authorities by region.

Yes, you do. Receiving a deposit or security EUR 206. The Regional State Administrative Agency may impose a fee 50 per cent lower for a special social reason or if the amount deposited by a natural person is less than the fee.

If the deposit or security is disbursed in more than two instalments, a fee equivalent to the estimated workload resulting from the expected disbursements is added to the fee charged for the service. Our hourly rate is EUR 70.

In addition, the costs of an announcement related to the receipt of the deposit or security shall be fully recovered.

The charge for processing deposits is payable by the depositor.

It is the depositor’s responsibility to let the recipient know that the funds are available for them to withdraw.

If the deposit relates to the expropriation of an entire property or a mortgaged property, we announce the deposit in the Official Journal of Finland. We also notify the rightful recipients personally if we have their addresses. More information about announcements in the Official Journal of Finland is available under “Deposits based on expropriation”.

Regional State Administrative Agencies hold deposits for a period of up to 10 years. The rightful recipient can request to withdraw the funds at any time during this period.  

The depositor can also withdraw their deposit during the first 10 years if they have reserved the right to do so in their original deposit registration request. Withdrawing your deposit within the first 10 years reinstates your liability for the debt or other payment obligation that the deposit was designed to settle. 

Payment obligations expire automatically after a deposit has been held for 10 years, and the depositor can reclaim any remaining funds that have not been disbursed. You have the right to reclaim your funds even if you did not specifically reserve the right to withdraw the funds yourself in your original deposit registration request. 

However, you must formally request the funds from the competent Regional State Administrative Agency within one year of the end of the 10-year period. In other words, you must reclaim the funds during the 11th year after you made the deposit. 

Once 11 years have elapsed since the deposit was made, any remaining funds that have not been withdrawn are forfeited to the state.

When you submit a deposit registration request, we will either approve it or reject it. We will let you know either way. You can appeal our decision to the competent administrative court, and appeal instructions are provided with the decision.

The processing fee will be billed to you separately after we have issued our decision.  

It is the depositor’s responsibility to notify the recipient of the funds if the recipient’s whereabouts are known.  

We process most of the deposit registration and withdrawal requests that we receive electronically. This means that we sign the relevant documents electronically and correspond with the interested parties by email. 

Electronic signing and the delivery of decisions by email help to speed up the process. We need the interested parties’ consent for electronic processing, which we ask for in the deposit registration and withdrawal forms.

Withdrawals

Withdrawal requests must be made in writing. We have prepared a special form for withdrawal requests, but you can also use our e-service or write to us informally and explain your circumstances in your own words. You can submit your request by post or by email. 

Your request must include the following information: 

  • your contact information (your name, address, email address and telephone number and information about your agent, if you have one) 
  • the name of the depositor or the case number 
  • the date when the deposit was made
  • the reason why the deposit was made 
  • bank details for the purposes of disbursement (the name of the receiver, bank account number, and BIC or SWIFT in case of a foreign payment) 
  • whether or not you consent to electronic processing 
  • any other relevant information

Send your request to the Regional State Administrative Agency that is holding the deposit. A link to the contact information of Regional State Administrative Agencies’ registries is provided at the bottom of this page.

We will review your request and make a determination as to whether or not you are entitled to withdraw the funds. We will let you know our decision either way. 

The beneficiaries disburse the funds together. The power of attorneys have to be attached to the request. They can also be submitted in our e-service.

The request must be accompanied by a copy of the estate inventory, the will (if there is one) and any other relevant documents.

If two or more individuals claim to have a right to the same funds, the depositor may have named multiple recipients. The funds can only be withdrawn by all the named recipients acting in concert. The recipients must sign an agreement on the distribution of the funds between them.

Without such an agreement, we cannot release the funds to anyone until a court has made a determination as to who the rightful recipient is. The case goes first to the competent district court and then, if necessary, to a court of appeals. 

The depositor can reserve the right to withdraw their deposit, which means that they can have the funds returned to them if no one else makes a claim for the funds within 10 years. The deposit registration form asks you whether or not you want to reserve for yourself the right to withdraw your deposit. 

However, you will not be able to exercise your right if someone else has already claimed the funds and refuses to return them. If a court has denied the other person’s claim, you can exercise your right to withdraw your deposit and have the funds returned to you. 

If you withdraw your deposit within the first 10 years, you resume liability for the payment obligation that the deposit was designed to settle. You are also liable if a deposit that you made has been disbursed to the wrong recipient due to incomplete or incorrect information provided by you.

If no one makes a claim for the funds that you have deposited within 10 years of when the deposit was made, you have the right to reclaim the funds for yourself. 

You have one year from the end of the 10-year period to reclaim your deposit. If the case is pending before a court, the deadline can be extended. In such circumstances, the one-year deadline starts to run from the date of the court’s ruling. 

To withdraw your deposit, you need to file a written request with the competent Regional State Administrative Agency. We have prepared a special form for withdrawal requests, but you can also use our e-service or write to us informally and explain your circumstances in your own words. You can submit your request by post or by email. 

Your request should include the following information:

  • your contact information (your name, address, email address and telephone number and information about your agent, if you have one) 
  • the name of the depositor or the case number 
  • the date when the deposit was made
  • the reason why the deposit was made 
  • bank details for the purposes of disbursement (IBAN, BIC and account holder’s name) 
  • whether or not you consent to electronic processing 
  • any other relevant information

Send your request to the Regional State Administrative Agency that is holding the deposit. A link to the contact information of Regional State Administrative Agencies’ registries is provided at the bottom of this page.

If you do not reclaim your deposit by the deadline, the funds or other deposited assets are forfeited to the state. 

Withdrawal requests can be denied in some circumstances, such as if the request is made by a person who is not entitled to the funds or if the request is missing key information and the author of the request fails to respond to our enquiries.

Deposits based on cadastral surveys

Deposits based on cadastral surveys are typically made in situations where several parties claim rights to the same piece of land, such as new land created by reliction.

After conducting a cadastral survey on a piece of land, the National Land Survey of Finland can order that any compensation owed to landowners be deposited with the competent Regional State Administrative Agency if

  • the landowners are not organised, 
  • the amount involved is small, or
  • the expense to be incurred from identifying the landowners is likely to be unreasonably high considering the amount of compensation involved. 

Making the deposit is a two-stage process:  

  1. Pay the funds into the account of the Regional State Administrative Agency. 
  2. Register your deposit with the competent Regional State Administrative Agency. 

Regional State Administrative Agencies’ account numbers are given in the deposit registration form and in the e-service.

Enclosing the National Land Survey of Finland’s survey report to your registration request speeds up the process.

Regional State Administrative Agencies do not accept deposits of compensation owed to organised landowners. Part of the land surveyor’s job is to find out whether the landowners have formed a joint property management association. The survey report explains whether or not the landowners are organised and, if they are, the compensation is paid directly to the joint property management association and not deposited with the Regional State Administrative Agency. 

Deposits based on expropriation

The compensation payable on account of expropriation can, in some circumstances, be deposited with the competent Regional State Administrative Agency. The depositor can be, for example, a local authority.

The governing law is called the Act on the Redemption of Immoveable Property and Special Rights, usually known as the Expropriation Act.

The compensation payment is most commonly deposited with the competent Regional State Administrative Agency in cases where an entire property is expropriated or where the remaining property does not cover the debt that the expropriated property secured. There are also other conditions that must be satisfied. 

A compensation payment can also be deposited in cases involving, for example, a dispute over rights to the property. If the expropriator disputes the amount of compensation, the disputed portion of the payment can be deposited. The same applies to any advance payments.

If an entire property is expropriated or there is a mortgage on the property, the competent Regional State Administrative Agency announces the deposit in the Official Journal of Finland. Having to announce a deposit delays disbursements by more than three months. 

Whenever compensation for expropriation is deposited due to the expropriation of an entire property, we notify the interested parties by announcing the deposit in the Official Journal. We also notify the individuals entitled to the compensation personally.

Anyone who believes that they have a claim to the funds that supersedes that of the owner or the pledgee of the funds can request that the funds be disbursed to them. The request must be filed within three months of the announcement in the Official Journal. The request must explain the justifications for the claim.

Requests can be made by right-holders such as banks that have mortgaged the expropriated property. These kinds of right-holders are deemed to have been notified of the deposit no later than when the issue of the Official Journal that carried the announcement was published. Since the right-holders have three months from the publication of the announcement to withdraw the deposit, property owners who are entitled to compensation on account of the expropriation cannot withdraw their share of the funds until the three-month period has elapsed. 

It is the depositor’s responsibility to pay for the cost of announcing the deposit in the Official Journal.

Security deposits

Security deposits are most commonly required to ensure the execution of a decision made by a government agency, such as an environmental permit issued by the competent Regional State Administrative Agency or the conclusions of a survey conducted by the National Land Survey of Finland. A court can also order that a security deposit be provided.

Providing a security deposit is a two-stage process: 

  1. Register your deposit with the competent Regional State Administrative Agency.
  2. Deliver the security to the competent Regional State Administrative Agency. You can either pay cash into the competent Regional State Administrative Agency’s account or provide a bank guarantee or some other similar document as security.

You need to register your deposit in writing. You can use our e-service, deposit registration form or explain your circumstances in your own words. Also provide us with the official decision or court order on which the security is based. 

Your registration request must include the following information:

  • your contact information (name, address and telephone number) 
  • information about the security 
  • the reason why you are providing a security deposit 
  • any other relevant information 
  • your billing address (if different from your correspondence address) and a reference, if you have one.

If you are using cash, you can transfer the amount directly into the competent Regional State Administrative Agency’s account. Write “Security deposit” in the reference field.  Regional State Administrative Agencies’ bank account numbers are given in the deposit registration form or in our e-service. 

If you are offering something else than cash as security, we will first need to determine whether or not your proposed security is acceptable. Unconditional bank guarantees are usually accepted. If you are offering an unconditional bank guarantee, you need to provide us with the original written contract between you and your bank. 

Once we are in possession of both your deposit registration request and your security, we open an account for your security deposit. If your security deposit is in the form of a bank guarantee, we keep the original contract between you and your bank. 

We will confirm receipt of your security in writing. Our letter will explain how you can reclaim your security deposit. 

If your security deposit relates to another decision of ours for which we have already billed you, we will waive our usual processing fee. A processing fee is payable in all other circumstances. 

For more information about our processing fees, see “About deposits: Do I have to pay to make a deposit?”

You need to ask for us to release your security. We have prepared a special form for requesting your security deposit back or you can use our e-service.

You must prove that you are entitled to reclaim your security. Whether or not you are entitled to your security deposit back depends on the reason why you provided the security in the first place. 

In some circumstances, we will need proof from the guarantor that all appeals have been exhausted on the official decision or court order in question. These kinds of cases are regulated by several laws, including the Finnish Water Act, the Finnish Environmental Protection Act and the Expropriation Act. 

Whether or not we can release your security may also depend on a decision made by a government agency other than us. 

We do not charge you for releasing your security.

Frequently asked questions

The deadline for withdrawing deposits held by Regional State Administrative Agencies in relation to shares in the Helsinki Telephone Association expired in 2016. You therefore can no longer ask for disbursement.

Each case is unique. Requests that force us to make further enquiries take longer to process. It is therefore important that you send us all the relevant documents with your deposit registration form.

If a deposit has accrued interest, we disburse the interest with the capital to the person who makes the withdrawal.

You cannot make a deposit for the sole reason of stopping the accumulation of interest. There must always be a legitimate reason, such as a court order. 

The minimum charge for making a deposit is EUR 200, but deposits can always be withdrawn free of charge. 

The bank where the Finnish Government has its accounts wants to make sure that Regional State Administrative Agencies are used for money laundering purposes. We therefore ask you about the origin of your funds and for your personal identity code. The bank only transfers the deposited funds into the account once it is satisfied with the origin of the funds.

Making a deposit is a two-stage process. In addition to paying the funds into the competent Regional State Administrative Agency’s account, you also need to register your deposit. Use our deposit registration form or our e-service. Alternatively, you can explain your circumstances in your own words. Make sure that you include at least the information requested in the registration form.

Links to legal texts