§ 1377.Creating Obligation Not Already Obligation of Owners, Heirs, Devisees, Etc.

The Controller's broad authority to sell, lease, and dispose of unclaimed property has a built-in ceiling: it can't be used to saddle the eventual claimants with new obligations they never agreed to. Section 1377 forbids the Controller from entering into any transaction that would create or impose on the owners, heirs, devisees, legatees, or other claimants of the property an obligation under an executory contract, unless performing that obligation was already required of those persons before the transaction took place.

That limit protects claimants who may not even know their property is being managed by the state. They eventually get their property, or its proceeds, back; they shouldn't also get a new contractual burden the Controller struck on their behalf without their knowledge or consent. The Controller can sell, lease, and settle freely under the rest of this chapter, but not in a way that expands what the true owners are on the hook for.