BILL ANALYSIS
By: Hartnett
Committee Report (Substituted)
BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE
Sensitive financial information, including account numbers and similar matters, are required to be disclosed to the court in certain proceedings under the Probate Code. The purpose of the bill is to define this information and to create a system to protect it from undue public disclosure.
RULEMAKING AUTHORITY
It is the committee's opinion that this bill does not expressly grant any additional rulemaking authority to a state officer, department, agency, or institution.
ANALYSIS
The bill adds a definition of "identifying financial information" to the Probate Code and would require that such information maintained for purposes of the inventory, annual account or final settlement of a decedent's or ward's estate or otherwise requested by the court be held in confidence and only be viewed by specific classes of persons without a court order, which would be granted for good cause shown. For purposes of information required to be maintained for inventory, annual account or final settlement, the personal representative (or guardian) or a person interested in the estate (or ward) may apply to require that identifying financial information be maintained in the judicial files of the court and not with the clerk. The bill requires the information be set out in an information sheet accompanying the order and that the applicant attach to the inventory or account, as the case may be, a statement that the information is being held in the judicial records of the court.
EFFECTIVE DATE
September 1, 2005
COMPARISON OF ORIGINAL TO SUBSTITUTE
The substitute deletes the word "of" from the first line of Section 871(d), Probate Code, in section 11 of the bill.