Public trustee to control unclaimed estates in new bill

Parliamentary Justice and legal affairs chairman William Cheptumo. FILE PHOTO | NMG 

By EDWIN MUTAI

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Summary

• The Justice and Legal Affairs committee says the Public Trustee will now be required to deposit funds which are unclaimed into an Unclaimed Estates Account.
• Where the funds remain unclaimed for seven years, the Public Trustee will be required to pay into the Consolidated Fund.
• MPs also endorsed amendments to the Bill that will see the Public Trustee appointed by the court as trustee of the property of a missing person.

Parliament has approved the exclusion of the Public Trustee from remitting unclaimed assets to the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority (UFAA).

The Justice and Legal Affairs committee says the Public Trustee will now be required to deposit funds which are unclaimed into an Unclaimed Estates Account.

Where the funds remain unclaimed for seven years, the Public Trustee will be required to pay into the Consolidated Fund.

The Unclaimed Financial Assets Act requires institutions such as insurance companies, banks, publicly listed companies among others to remit unclaimed assets to the authority every calendar year.

“The provisions in the Unclaimed Financial Assets Act that require institutions to remit unclaimed assets to the Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority shall not apply to the Public Trustee,” states section 28 of the Public Trustee (Amendment) Bill, 2017.

In its report on the consideration of the Bill, the committee chaired by Baringo North MP William Cheptumo argued that unclaimed estates do not constitute unclaimed assets since they belong to the estate of the deceased.

“The Act and the Bill contain provisions for handling unclaimed estates. If these estate assets are not claimed, they escheat (revert ) to the State after seven years,” Mr Cheptumo said.

READ: Unclaimed assets now hit Sh25bn

The committee said the Public Trustee is an executive agency of government that deals with unclaimed estate assets.

“The Public Trustee pays interest on funds unlike Unclaimed Financial Assets Authority, which pays the principal amount only,” Mr Cheptumo said in the committee report tabled in Parliament last week.

MPs also endorsed amendments to the Bill that will see the Public Trustee appointed by the court as trustee of the property of a missing person. The Trustee will be picked after 180 days of the person’s disappearance.

This will ensure that the property an be accessed to cover urgent and immediate needs of dependants.

Section 118A of the Evidence Act provides for a rebuttable presumption of death where a person has been missing for a period of seven years.