Any relatives of Roman Blum, a Holocaust survivor and New York real estate developer who passed away last January, better step forward now and claim his colossal-sized fortune of $40 million before the New York State can legally claim it after three years.
According to a report in Forbes, Blum, 97, had accumulated a great fortune over his career but left no will and authorities have not been able to find any living relatives. Blum's funeral at the New Montefiore Jewish Cemetery in West Babylon, N.Y., was attended by a small number of mourners, most of them survivors of the Holocaust or their children.
Blum lost his wife in the 1992 and they did not have any children. Under New York law called escheat, his $40 million estate will belong to the state by January 2015 if no one claims it.
"He was a very smart man but he died like an idiot," said Paul Skurka, also a Holocaust survivor, told The New York Times. He made friends with Blum when they did carpentry work in the 1970s.
His jewelry was auctioned off, his Staten Island home was sold, and his furniture and other properties are on the market.
"I spoke to Roman many times before he passed away, and he knew what to do, how to name beneficiaries," said Mason D. Corn, his accountant and friend for 30 years.
"Two weeks before he died, I had finally gotten him to sit down. He saw the end was coming. He was becoming mentally feeble. We agreed. I had to go away, and so he told me, 'O.K., when you come back I will do it.' But by then it was too late. We came this close, but we missed the boat."
