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Weber County staff propose sending decades-old subdivision escrows to state unclaimed property
Summary
County staff told commissioners they plan to turn roughly $800,000 in pre-2015 subdivision escrow funds over to the state as unclaimed property after years of unsuccessful attempts to locate entitled parties.
Weber County commissioners heard a proposal to transfer longstanding subdivision escrow accounts that predate 2015 to the state unclaimed property program, county staff said.
Sean Wilkinson, a county staff member, told commissioners the county holds a collection of escrow accounts set up to guarantee subdivision improvements that in many cases were never completed and for which entitled parties have not come forward. "There is a path where we can transfer these escrow funds to the state as unclaimed property," Wilkinson said.
The proposal applies to accounts established before the county's financial system conversion in 2015. County staff said the balance of those older escrows is roughly $800,000 to $900,000 and that most of those funds relate to subdivisions where improvements are unlikely to be completed. "We're never going to go back and do the improvements that were supposed to have been done 10 to 20 years ago," Wilkinson said.
Scott Park and Chad Meyer, county staff who have worked on the records, said the department has already cleared many older items and continues to pursue recoverable escrows. Park said a small number of escrows remain appropriate to keep because there are active prospects to complete the work: examples cited included leftover funds related to Powder Mountain condos, McFarland Subdivision road work on 3600 West, and an ongoing Powder Canyon condominium completion. "If they came in and worked with the commission on an existing subdivision improvement agreement, we think that would go to help complete some of those," Park said.
Commissioner Harvey raised concerns about the equity of returning funds to the state rather than using them to finish promised improvements for residents, noting examples such as sidewalks and secondary water lines. "Won't the county be liable to finish those anyway?" Harvey asked. Wilkinson and other staff responded that legal liability and contractual limitations differ by case, and that the county's attorneys had advised that unclaimed property transfer is the appropriate path when entitled claimants cannot be located.
Commissioner Furr urged following state law and said staff had been diligent in outreach: "State code is pretty clear with escrows, trust accounts, etcetera, that needs to go into unclaimed property at the state," Furr said. Commissioners indicated support for moving the highlighted pre-2015 escrows to state unclaimed property and for continuing follow-up on escrows from 2016 onward.
Staff said the change would allow the county to present a cleaner accounting of outstanding escrows to a newly incorporated city in the area and would let the state's unclaimed property process handle future claims. No formal vote was recorded at the meeting on the staff proposal; commissioners discussed and expressed general agreement to proceed with the plan and to retain specific escrows where improvements remain feasible.
The county will provide commissioners a detailed list of the escrows proposed for transfer and retain the accounts where on-the-ground improvements are still expected.
Looking ahead, staff said they have updated contractual language and ordinances for future subdivision agreements to provide the county more flexibility in how improvement guarantees can be used and enforced, which they said should reduce future accumulation of stale escrows.
