Alaska Stat. § 12.36.045

This is the official text of Alaska Stat. § 12.36.045, part of Alaska’s Stat — part of the compiled statutory law of Alaska, published by the state as "Stat." Browse the sections below, each linked to its official government source.

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When finder of property is considered the owner.

Official statutory text

(a) When a private individual obtains property of another that is lost, mislaid, or delivered to the individual by mistake, the individual delivers that property to a law enforcement agency, and the true owner of the property remains unknown for a period of one year or does not claim the property within one year, the individual delivering the property shall be considered the owner of the property under this chapter if possession of the property by the individual is otherwise legal. If, after the one-year period, the private individual who delivered the property to the law enforcement agency cannot be found or does not want the property, the property shall be disposed of by the agency as if the owner is unknown.

(b) This section does not apply to property that comes into the custody of a law enforcement agency of a municipality that has adopted an ordinance providing for the custody and disposition of property that meets the requirements specified in AS 12.36.030 (c).

Status: in_force · Read it on the official government site

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About this page: Statute text is reproduced from official government publishers via the Open US Law dataset (Vaquill AI, snapshot v2026.08, CC BY 4.0). Primary legislative text like this is public domain under the government-edicts doctrine (Georgia v. Public.Resource.Org, 2020). We link every section back to its official source so you can verify it independently.