Cite as: 507 U. S. 490 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
New York. We granted leave to file the complaint, 486 U. S. 1030 (1988), and appointed a Special Master, 488 U. S. 990 (1988). We granted Texas' motion to file a complaint as an intervening plaintiff, 489 U. S. 1005 (1989), and every State not already a party to this proceeding and the District of Columbia sought leave to intervene.
On January 28, 1992, the Master filed his report and recommendation. Both Delaware and New York have lodged exceptions to the report, as have four other parties whose motions for leave to intervene have not been granted by this Court.8 We now sustain two of Delaware's exceptions in their entirety, one of Delaware's exceptions in part, and one of New York's exceptions. We also grant all pending motions to intervene and to file briefs as amici curiae, overrule all exceptions not sustained in this opinion, and remand for further proceedings before the Master.
II
States as sovereigns may take custody of or assume title to abandoned personal property as bona vacantia, a process commonly (though somewhat erroneously) called escheat.9 See, e. g., Christianson v. King County, 239 U. S. 356, 365- 366 (1915); Cunnius v. Reading School Dist., 198 U. S. 458, 469-476 (1905); Hamilton v. Brown, 161 U. S. 256, 263-264 (1896). No serious controversy can arise between States seeking to escheat "tangible property, real or personal," for "it has always been the unquestioned rule in all jurisdictions that only the State in which the property is located may es-8 In a joint brief, Michigan, Maryland, Nebraska, and the District of Columbia filed two exceptions to the Master's report.
9 "At common law, abandoned personal property was not the subject of escheat, but was subject only to the right of appropriation by the sovereign as bona vacantia." Anderson Nat. Bank v. Luckett, 321 U. S. 233, 240 (1944). See generally 7 W. Holdsworth, A History of English Law 495-496 (2d ed. 1937). Our opinions, however, have understood "escheat" as encompassing the appropriation of both real and personal property, and we use the term in that broad sense.
497
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