Section 345: Unclaimed money escheats after five years

Supreme Court decisions interpreting this section

1. Supreme Court Judgment No. 3626/2565 (2022)

   Section 345 requires a party entitled to money left unpaid in court to complete the process of collecting it within five years of the date the case became final; money still unpaid after that becomes State property, so that the court financial accounts can be settled and the money paid over as State revenue. The five years run from the finality of the case, not from whenever the right to the money is said to arise - otherwise collection could be postponed indefinitely, which is not the purpose of the provision. That the court has already approved the refund and issued a cheque does not stop time running while the money remains uncollected.

   On 27 July 2014 the first court gave judgment by consent and ordered 10,000 baht of court fees refunded to the plaintiff, whose counsel, who was also its sub-attorney, was present and so is taken to have known of the order that day. The plaintiff applied for the refund on 28 January 2015, the court checked it and issued a cheque, but no one came to collect it, so the money remained unpaid in court. The plaintiff applied again only on 27 December 2019. The Supreme Court, consumer division, held that section 345 with section 7 of the Consumer Case Procedure Act B.E. 2551 requires collection to be completed within five years of the case becoming final, so the money had become State property; the plaintiff contention that it could be collected at any time once approved would extend the period indefinitely, which is not the purpose of the section. The further argument that time should run from 25 February 2015, when the right to receive the money was said to arise under the court approval, had not been raised in the Court of Appeal and was not entertained.

2. Supreme Court Judgment No. 1306/2566 (2023)

   Money deposited at court to satisfy a debt that the entitled person does not collect within five years becomes property of the State under Section 345, even where a court clerk had earlier proposed to pay it to the wrong recipient.

   The defendant deposited 20,000 baht on 6 October 2557 and the injured person filed to receive it but never collected. After more than five years the money was remitted as State revenue on 27 December 2564. The court held the injured person's failure to collect within five years caused the money to escheat under Section 345.

Curated decisions with case numbers verified against the Supreme Court database. English renderings are the firm's editorial translation for study.