Sixty per cent of Spanish people hand in lost property

A survey by the company Recupérame says honesty and doing the right thing continues to take priority for most people.

Over 82 per cent of those interviewed said they had found a lost item at some point in their lives, and 66 per cent said they gave them back, whilst many of the rest claim they would have returned it if they had been able to trace the owner.

Seven in 10 of those who did not hand in items found say they chose to keep them, with the 18 to 24 year age group being the most likely to do so.

It also tends to be the younger generations, particularly the upper classes, who lose their belongings the most often, whilst a high percentage of those aged 55 to 65 say they have never lost anything in their lives.

Residents in Andalucía are the most likely to lose something, with 85 per cent saying they have done so at least once.

Those living in Madrid are the most careful and tend not to lose things, but are the least likely to hand them in if they find someone else's property.

Catalunya is the most honest region, with seven in 10 handing found items in, and after Madrid, residents in Castilla-La Mancha and Cantabria who lose something are the least likely to get it back.

A total of 53 per cent of lost items disappear in the street, whilst 6.7 per cent are misplaced in bars, four per cent left behind on buses, trains, in taxis or on planes, and 3.8 per cent in shops.

Personal items are most likely to be mislaid, being 36 per cent of the total, followed by passports and identity documents in 29 per cent of cases, phones or other electronic devices on 19.6 per cent of occasions and money 8.1 per cent of incidences of lost items.

Men are quicker to give something up for lost, whereas women keep looking for it longer.

And men tend to hand items in more than women.

More and more companies specialising in tracing and returning lost property are starting up, with Recupérame, which organised the Lost Property in Spain survey, being one of these.