The STD 435 form in California is the State Controller’s request to stop payment on a lost, stolen, destroyed, or never-received state warrant and issue a duplicate. Its full title is “Request for Duplicate Controller’s Warrant / Stop Payment,” and it covers any warrant issued by the State Controller on behalf of a state agency, including tax refunds, vendor payments, and payroll checks. Once the State Controller’s Office receives your completed form, a replacement typically arrives within about seven to fourteen business days, provided the original has not already been cashed.
When to Use the STD 435
The form addresses four situations: a warrant that never arrived in the mail, one lost after you received it, one that was destroyed, and one that was stolen. If any state-issued check to you has gone missing, this is the mechanism to replace it.
Two boundaries are worth naming up front. Payroll warrants lost before the employee ever received them use a different form, the CD 113 A or B, and the duplicate goes to the agency rather than the employee. And under Government Code Section 17070, the Controller cancels any warrant that stays unpaid for a year after it became payable, so a warrant older than that cannot be replaced through the STD 435 process. In that case, contact the authorizing agency about whether the payment can be reissued as a new warrant.
Who Starts the Form
You do not fill out the STD 435 entirely on your own. The process begins with the state agency that authorized the original warrant. That agency completes the top portion of page one with the warrant number, issue date, amount, fund number, and payee name, then sends the partially completed form to you by mail or fax. You finish the remaining fields, sign it, and mail the original to the State Controller’s Office yourself.
If you have not received a warrant you were expecting, or if one has gone missing, contact the issuing agency first. They initiate the form.
What the Payee Fills In
Once the agency’s portion is complete, you handle the declaration section and the fields below it. All entries must be typed or legibly printed; the Controller’s Office will return anything illegible.
- Check the box that matches your situation: never received, lost or destroyed, or stolen. For a theft, include the approximate date.
- Briefly describe what happened. A sentence is enough, such as “Warrant was mailed to my former address and not forwarded” or “Envelope arrived opened and empty.”
- Enter the mailing address where you want the duplicate sent. The replacement goes to whatever you write here, so check it carefully.
- Sign in non-black ballpoint ink. This lets the Controller’s Office confirm the signature is original rather than photocopied. If the office cannot tell, the form comes back to the agency.
- Fill in title and organization only if you are signing on behalf of a corporation, partnership, or government agency. Individuals applying for themselves leave those blank.
- Include a daytime phone number with area code, and the date you signed.
If the warrant named more than one payee, every payee on the original must sign, and each signature must match the name as it appeared on the warrant.
What You Are Agreeing To
Signing the STD 435 is not a formality. The form is a legal affidavit, certified under penalty of perjury, and it includes an indemnity agreement. You agree to hold the State of California harmless from any loss caused by issuing the duplicate. If the original warrant later resurfaces and someone cashes it, you are responsible for the state’s loss. Your signature is the agreement; no separate surety bond is required for an individual payee. Government agencies and their officers are exempt from the indemnity.
Where to Send It
Mail the original signed pages to:
State Controller’s Office
Administration and Disbursements Division — Post Issuance Unit
P.O. Box 942850
Sacramento, CA 94250-5871
State agencies also have the option of emailing the form to disbstd435@sco.ca.gov, and in some cases a department can sign on behalf of the payee to speed things along.
If the Original Warrant Shows Up
Timing matters here. If the original arrives after you have started the form but before you have signed and mailed it, cash the original and destroy the application. Once you have signed and sent the STD 435, do not cash the original if it later appears. A stop payment is on it, so it will not clear, and attempting to deposit it can trigger processing charges.
Stolen Warrants Move Faster
When a warrant has been stolen, the authorizing agency completes the STD 435 and also faxes a copy directly to the Controller’s Office so a stop payment can be placed immediately, before the payee even signs. The agency calls the Controller’s Office at 916-445-3903 to initiate the immediate stop and get the fax number. You still complete, sign, and mail the original form through the normal process; the difference is that the stop payment goes on the warrant right away rather than waiting for your signed form to arrive in Sacramento.
What Happens After You Submit
The Controller’s Office checks whether the original warrant has been redeemed. If it has not been cashed, a stop payment goes on it and a duplicate is mailed to the address you provided, generally within about seven to fourteen business days of receiving your form.
If the original has already been cashed, no duplicate is issued. The Controller’s Office sends a photocopy of the front and back of the cashed warrant to the authorizing agency, which then looks into whether the endorsement was forged or there is another explanation.
Payroll Warrants Received Then Lost
If a payroll warrant was lost or destroyed after the employee received it, the standard STD 435 process applies. In payroll situations, the agency may issue an office revolving fund check as a temporary replacement and then use the duplicate warrant from the Controller’s Office to reimburse the revolving fund. For non-payroll warrants, agencies cannot issue revolving fund checks as substitutes; you wait for the duplicate.