Legal Question in Real Estate Law in California

Re: Finding Valuable Property

Yes, indeed! California has a statute embodying the common-law principle that failing to return "lost" property where the owner was known or reasonably ascertainable is larceny.

The statute is Penal Code section 485: "One who finds property under circumstances which give him knowledge of or means of inquiry as to the true owner, and who appropriates such property to his own use, or to the use of another person not entitled thereto, without first making just and reasonable efforts to find the owner and restore the property to him, is guilty of theft."

This law was enacted in 1872, and although the language may invite a clever finder to look for technical "loopholes" to justify a "finders keepers, losers weepers" interpretation in some situations, it really, really is enforced liberally so that a finder really, really faces time in prison for keeping lost property when there was an opportunity, through effort, to locate the owner.