§ 7.002.Liability for Deposits Pending Suit

Custody rules for money and property held by the court, and they are pointedly physical.

An officer holding a sum of money, a debt, an instrument, or other property paid to or deposited with a court pending the outcome of a cause of action shall seal the property in a secure package in a safe or bank vault that is accessible and subject to the control of the court.

Three requirements sit in that sentence. The property is sealed, it is kept in a safe or bank vault, and that place is subject to the control of the court rather than of the officer.

Sealing is what makes interference detectable. A sealed package cannot be quietly opened and resealed without trace, which is the point for property that may sit for years.

The officer shall keep in the office, as part of the records, an itemized inventory of property deposited with the court, listing the disposition of the property and the account for which it was received.

Recording the disposition matters as much as recording the deposit. An inventory showing only what came in leaves no record of what left.

At the expiration of the officer’s term, the officer shall transfer all deposited property and the inventory to the successor, who shall give a receipt.

The receipt is what fixes responsibility at the handover. Without it, a later shortfall could not be attributed to one term or the next.

Subsection (d) closes the section: none of this exempts an officer or the officer’s surety from liability on the officer’s bond for neglect or other default. The procedures are duties, not a safe harbour.