California Financial Code 51009 – (a) A person who engages in business as an exchange facilitator …
(a) A person who engages in business as an exchange facilitator shall have the responsibility to act as a custodian for all exchange funds, including, but not limited to, money, property, other consideration, or instruments received by the person from, or on behalf of, a client, except funds received as the person’s compensation. A person who engages in business as an exchange facilitator shall invest those exchange funds in investments that meet a prudent investor standard and that satisfy the investment goals of liquidity and preservation of principal. For purposes of this section, a prudent investor standard is violated if any of the following occurs:
(1) Exchange funds are knowingly commingled by the exchange facilitator with the operating accounts of the exchange facilitator.
Terms Used In California Financial Code 51009
- Attachment: A procedure by which a person's property is seized to pay judgments levied by the court.
- Client: means the taxpayer with whom the exchange facilitator enters into an agreement described in subparagraph (A) of paragraph (1) of subdivision (b). See California Financial Code 51000
- Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
- Exchange facilitator: means a person that does any of the following:
California Financial Code 51000
- Financial institution: means a bank, credit union, savings and loan association, savings bank, or trust company chartered under the laws of this state or the United States whose accounts are insured by the full faith and credit of the United States, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the National Credit Union Share Insurance Fund, or other similar or successor programs. See California Financial Code 51000
- Person: means an individual, a corporation, a partnership, a limited liability company, a joint venture, an association, a joint stock company, a trust, or any other form of a legal entity, and includes the agents and employees of that person. See California Financial Code 51000
- Prudent investor standard: means the prudent investor rule described in Article 2. See California Financial Code 51000
(2) Exchange funds are loaned or otherwise transferred to any person or entity, other than a financial institution, that is affiliated with or related to the exchange facilitator. This paragraph does not apply to the transfer of funds from an exchange facilitator to an exchange accommodation titleholder in accordance with an exchange contract.
(3) Exchange funds are invested in a manner that does not provide sufficient liquidity to meet the exchange facilitator’s contractual obligations to its clients and does not preserve the principal of the exchange funds.
(b) Exchange funds shall not be subject to execution or attachment on any claim against the exchange facilitator. An exchange facilitator shall not knowingly keep, or cause to be kept, any money in any bank, credit union, or other financial institution under a name designating the money as belonging to the client of any exchange facilitator, unless that money belongs to that client and was actually entrusted to the exchange facilitator by that client.
(Added by Stats. 2008, Ch. 708, Sec. 2. Effective January 1, 2009.)