Pennsylvania Statutes Title 27 P.S. Escheats § 433. Petition; hearing; order; effect of payment

Whereupon the Attorney General shall file a petition in the proper court, praying for the making of such an order, and apply to said court to set a day for a hearing upon such petition, and for a preliminary order that service of a copy of the petition and of notice of the date set for said hearing be made upon the person, copartnership, association, bank, national bank, trust company, or other corporation holding or possessed of said items. If at said hearing it shall appear to the said court that, since the reporting of or the ascertainment of said items by the Auditor General, any such items have been claimed by persons lawfully entitled thereto, or any such items are so claimed at said hearing, or that said items were not properly subject to escheat under the provisions of any act of the General Assembly, the court shall order said items or the amounts thereof to be delivered or paid to said claimants, or to remain in the possession of the person, firm, association, bank, national bank, trust company, or other corporation, as the facts shall warrant, and shall order the amounts of all items not so claimed to be paid into the State Treasury to the credit of the Commonwealth, or, if such items consist of chattels or securities, that the same be sold in such manner as the court may direct and that the proceeds thereof be similarly paid into the State Treasury.

It is the purpose and intent of this act that moneys subject to escheat, sought by the Commonwealth to be ordered paid into the State Treasury without escheat, under the provisions of this act, shall be forthwith ordered by the proper court to be so paid, whenever application for such an order is made by the Attorney General after the respective periods provided by existing law making such moneys escheatable shall have expired respectively, and after the notices by mail and by advertisement required to be given by the act making such moneys escheatable shall have been given, without any further notice whatever to depositors, beneficiaries, or creditors.

Upon the payment of the amounts of such items or the proceeds thereof into the State Treasury in compliance with said order, the said person, firm, association, bank, national bank, trust company, or other corporation shall be relieved from all liability for the amounts so paid.