(a) If there is no supplemental assessment, the entire amount of the surplus shall be applied as a credit to the assessment or, as an alternative, any portion of the surplus may be used to call outstanding bonds. If any supplemental assessment has been levied, any portion of the surplus shall be applied as a credit to the assessment or supplemental assessment, or both, or, as an alternative, may be used to call outstanding bonds, as the legislative body may determine. Any credit upon the assessment or any supplemental assessment shall be made in the proportion which each individual assessment, or installment of principal thereof, bears to the total of all individual assessments in the assessment or supplemental assessments upon which the surplus is to be credited. Any bonds called pursuant to this section shall be selected in accordance with Section 8768.

(b) Where an individual assessment, or any installment of the principal thereof, has been paid in cash after January 1, 1991, the credit shall be returned in cash to the person or persons owning the property for which the assessment or installment has been paid upon their furnishing satisfactory evidence of payment.

(c) Where all or any part of an individual assessment remains unpaid, if the individual assessment is not payable in installments, the credit shall be applied in its entirety upon the individual assessment.

(d) Where all or any part of an individual assessment remains unpaid and is payable in installments, the amount apportioned to each parcel shall be credited against the next installment or installments unpaid upon it after the two-year period specified in this subdivision. When any of the surplus is to be applied as a credit upon the assessment, payable in installments, no credit may be paid or credited as provided in this section until after a period of two years from the date of receipt of proceeds of the sale of bonds by the legal entity conducting the proceedings.

(e) There shall be transferred to the general fund of the city (1) any portion of the surplus which has not been paid to or claimed by the persons entitled thereto within four years from the date of recordation of the assessment and any supplemental assessment or, if bonds have been issued, within four years after the due date of the last installment upon the bonds or of the last principal coupon attached thereto, and (2) any interest earned from the investment of any moneys constituting all or any part of the surplus when the surplus attributable to an individual remaining assessment is fifty dollars ($50) or less. If the surplus attributable to an individual remaining assessment is greater than fifty dollars ($50), any interest earned thereon, less administrative cost of investing and crediting, shall be applied as a credit to the assessment.

(Amended by Stats. 1990, Ch. 446, Sec. 24.)