Monies owed to Malibu residents have been held for more than 20 years by the Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector’s Office. The refunds must be claimed by Dec. 21 or else they go to the county’s general fund.
By Olivia Damavandi / Assistant Editor
Ironically, as residents gear up to battle the imposition of a sewer in Malibu for the second time in more than two decades, many are receiving refunds from Los Angeles County from the first battle.
The Los Angeles County Treasurer and Tax Collector is currently holding $1.4 million in monies unclaimed by residents, who in 1985 paid for the initial phases of implementing a sewer in Malibu. But time is running out, as funds unclaimed by Dec. 21 will fall under possession of the county.
The matter received much attention last week when a more than three-page legal notice of unclaimed funds was published in The Malibu Times.
“I’ve received a lot of calls from people from Malibu to Sacramento, saying that they’ve seen their name in there and they want to know how to go about claiming their funds,” Times employee Teresa Gelbman said Tuesday.
The notice, which includes people such as actor Gary Busey, singer Olivia Newton-John, Fred Segal and Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling, is also published in this week’s paper for the final time.
Many people are also asking why it has taken more than 20 years to issue the $1.4 million in refunds-which originally totaled $5.3 million-and why the notice is being published for the first time just a month and a half before the collection deadline.
Los Angeles County’s efforts to force Malibu to have a sewer system were halted in 1993 by a lawsuit filed by a coalition of local homeowners associations, who feared massive development would follow. According to the terms of the settlement, the county could not refund any money until all parcels were declared current on their taxes, which finally occurred in February 2008.
“The county has been working on refunding this money for a while now because there are so many parcels and recipients,” Elizabeth Ginsberg, operation chief of internal controls in the county’s treasure and tax collector, said Monday in a telephone interview. “This is our last effort to try to contact people and get money to them. We’re only required to publish it once but we’ve been working hard to contact people.”
“There was nothing to preclude us from publishing earlier, but we wanted to rely on the direct notification of locating people rather than relying on a newspaper announcement,” Joseph Kelly, the county’s assistant treasurer and tax collector, said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “We retained the services of professional skip tracing firms. A lot of people had moved, so we skip traced to find their new addresses, sent them claim notices and second claim notices. Then in July, we did a final search for those whose refunds were $2,000 or more.”
Kelly said the approximate amount paid for the sewer that was never installed by each parcel owner was $3,100, which since 2004 incurred earnings rates ranging between approximately two percent and five percent.
However, the number of parcels eligible for a refund is unknown because outdated documentation and a map of the assessment district could not be located, he said.
More information about filing a claim can be obtained online at ttc.lacounty.gov or by calling 213.974.6302.