§ 1511.Money Order, Travelers Check Or Similar Written Instrument

Money orders and traveler's checks cross state lines constantly, so this chapter needs its own rule for deciding which state gets to claim an unredeemed one. Section 1511 escheats the sum payable on such an instrument, where a business association bears direct liability, to California if the association's books show it was purchased here. If the association's principal place of business is in California and its records do not show where the instrument was purchased, California can claim it on that basis alone.

The section adds a third route: if the association's principal place of business is in California, its records do show the state of purchase, but that other state's laws do not provide for escheat of the sum, California can still claim it. All of this reaches back further than most of this chapter's other provisions; the section applies to instruments deemed abandoned on or after February 1, 1965, tying its own retroactive reach to the federal statute governing unclaimed money orders and traveler's checks, except to the extent a sum was already paid to a state before 1974.