(1) The Legislature finds that laws governing abandoned property serve a vital public purpose by protecting the property rights of owners, facilitating the return 1of abandoned property to its owners, preventing private escheatment, and ensuring that abandoned assets are preserved and safeguarded from waste or misuse. It is the public policy of the state to protect the interests of owners of abandoned property. (2) This chapter shall be applied and construed as to effectuate its general purpose of protecting the interest of missing owners of abandoned property, while providing that the benefit of all abandoned property shall go to all the people of the state, and to make uniform the law with respect to the subject of this chapter among states enacting it. It is the intent of the Legislature that property reported under this chapter remains the property of the owner and that the State of Florida acts solely as a custodian, not as the owner, of such property. Title to abandoned property may not transfer to the state except as expressly provided by law and only after all reasonable efforts to identify and return the property to its rightful owner have been exhausted.
