Cite as: 507 U. S. 490 (1993)
Opinion of the Court
long run . . . the most generally acceptable to all the States." Id., at 683.
We reaffirmed Texas in Pennsylvania v. New York, 407 U. S. 206 (1972). Texas had involved the relatively simple case of a debtor that "disclaimed any interest" in "various small debts . . . owed to . . . small creditors who ha[d] never appeared to collect them." Texas, supra, at 676, 675. In Pennsylvania, by contrast, the Western Union Company held proceeds left unclaimed because Western Union was unable to locate the payee of a money order or to make a refund to the sender or because drafts issued by Western Union were not negotiated. See 407 U. S., at 208-209; Western Union Telegraph Co. v. Pennsylvania, 368 U. S. 71, 72-73 (1961). Because Western Union did not "regularly record the addresses of its money order creditors," the primary rule would rarely apply, and the debtor's State of incorporation— Western Union's "corporate domicile"—would "receive a much larger share of the unclaimed funds" under the secondary rule. Pennsylvania, 407 U. S., at 214. In response to this perceived injustice, other States advocated a rule allowing the State of "the place of purchase" to escheat under the primary rule. We nevertheless adhered to our decision in Texas. The "only arguable" difference between money orders and the obligations at issue in Texas lay in the fact that money orders "involve a higher percentage of unknown addresses." 407 U. S., at 214. We reasoned that neither this distinction nor the resulting "likelihood of a 'windfall' " for the debtor's State of incorporation would justify the "carving out [of an] exception to the Texas rule." Ibid.
We therefore resolve disputes among States over the right to escheat intangible personal property in the following three steps. First, we must determine the precise debtor-creditor relationship as defined by the law that creates the property at issue. Second, because the property interest in any debt belongs to the creditor rather than the debtor, the primary rule gives the first opportunity to escheat to the
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