Property. (a) If a decedent, whether or not domiciled in Guam at the time of death, leaves no one to take his estate or any portion thereof by testate succession, and no one other than a government, governmental subdivi- sion or government agency to take his estate or any portion thereof by intestate succession, under the laws of Guam or of any other jurisdiction, such property escheats at the time of such decedent's death in accordance with the provisions of this Chapter. (b) Property passing to the Government of Guam under the provisions of this Chapter, whether held by the Government of Guam or its officers, is subject to the same charges and trusts to which it would have been subject if passed by succession, and is also subject to the applicable provisions of the law of Guam relating to escheated estates. SOURCE: California Probate Code, § 231(a) and (b) (as amended). COMMENT: Escheat was covered under § 231 of the Probate Code of Guam (1970). Section 231 was very terse, and in the opinion of the Commission was not sufficient adequately to cover the field of escheat. Therefore, the Commission has extensively rewritten the law of escheat, basically following the model of §§ 231 - 236 of the California Probate Code. The Commission is indebted to the California Law Revision Commission for some of the Comments which follow the various Sections in this Chapter. Section 1201 (prior § 231) has been revised to conform with the succeeding provisions of Chapter 12, which have been added to provide concrete rules for
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determining whether a decedent's property escheats to the Government of Guam. In subsection (a) of § 1201, the words Awhether or not domiciled in Guam at the time of death@ have been included to make it clear that Chapter 12 governs escheat of property belonging to nondomiciliary decedents as well as to domiciliaries. Under the law of some jurisdictions, property does not escheat in the sense that it does under Guam law and most other Anglo-American jurisdictions. Instead, the government inherits the property when there is no collateral kindred of the decedent within a specified degree of kinship. The language of subsection (a) of § 1201 makes it clear that the claim of such a jurisdiction will not preclude an escheat that would otherwise occur under Guam law. Subsection (b) of § 1201, although its language has been revised in conformity with the California statute for the sake of clarity, essentially carries over the provisions of prior § 231 into this Title.