Request By:
Edwin A. Monroe, Jr.
Attorney at Law
Courthouse Square
Falmouth, Kentucky 41040
Opinion
Opinion By: Robert F. Stephens, Attorney General; By William S. Riley, Assistant Attorney General
In your recent letter to the Attorney General, it is stated that the Pendleton Circuit Court Clerk has an account in a local bank transferred from a prior clerk. Apparently the account has been transferred from clerk to clerk. The State Auditor's Office advised the present circuit clerk that the account should be treated as abandoned funds.
The question is whether the county can petition the circuit clerk to remit the fund to the county fiscal court to be used to air condition a proposed new district courtroom.
KRS 393.100 provides that any property paid into any court in this state for distribution and the increments to such property shall be presumed abandoned if not claimed within five years after the date of payment into the court or as soon after the five year period as all claims filed in connection with have been discallowed or settled. The only exception is where the money was paid into the court by a municipality and the municipality can file a claim for the return of the money. According to OAG 67-418, copy attached, the term "municipality" includes a county so that money remaining in the hands of the county master commissioner left over as a result of the sale of real estate for delinquent property taxes should be escheated to the general fund of the county.
Any funds, such as advance court costs and money on bonds, must be remitted to the state. See KRS 393.230 which provides that an equitable proceeding can be brought on the relation of the commissioner to force payment or surrender of intangible property to the department.