What does a New York trustee owe beneficiaries in information and accounts?

Information on a written request

SCPA 2102(1) provides that a proceeding may require a fiduciary to supply information concerning the assets or affairs of an estate — which for the SCPA includes a trust's property — when the fiduciary has failed to do so after a written request. The statute sets no day-count; it gives the beneficiary a route to the court.

Because the remedy turns on a written request, the record matters: the request, the date, and the answer. A trustee who keeps the trust's ledger current can answer most requests from it.

The annual statements

SCPA 2309(4) provides that the annual commissions SCPA 2309(2) allows may be retained by a trustee who furnishes, annually, a statement of the principal assets on hand as of a date no more than 30 days before the end of the trust year the trustee selects, and at least annually a statement of all receipts of income and principal, including the commissions retained and the basis on which they were computed.

The statements go to each beneficiary currently receiving income and to any other beneficiary interested in the income, and any person interested in the principal, who demands them. An income beneficiary who does not want them may say so in writing, which excuses the trustee as to that beneficiary until the beneficiary asks again (SCPA 2309(4)).

Settling an account

New York sets no annual account for every trustee. An account is settled informally: an instrument settling it, signed by everyone who would be cited in a judicial settlement, binds the persons they represent unless it provides otherwise (SCPA 315(8)). Or it is settled judicially, on the trustee's petition where a trust has been or is ready to be executed, or where the account has not been judicially settled within the preceding year and the court entertains the application (SCPA 2208(3)).

Process on a trustee's judicial account goes to the persons SCPA 2210 lists — among them every person entitled absolutely or contingently to share under the instrument or the law.

When the court requires an account

SCPA 2205 provides that the court may at any time, when it appears to be in the estate's best interests, order a fiduciary to file an intermediate or final account, on its own initiative or on the petition of a creditor, a person interested or the others the section lists, and may suspend a fiduciary who fails to account. Failing to account when ordered is also among the cases in which the court may act without process (SCPA 719).

An instrument's own accounting clause shapes the routine, and many instruments say more than the statute. Whether a particular clause excuses or adds to these rules is a reading of the instrument — a question for a licensed New York attorney.

Lwa yo, mo pou mo

• Proceedings for relief against a fiduciary

  SCPA 2102 ↗

  Eksplikasyon klè e senp; tèks egzak lwa a poko ateste nan bibliyotèk nou an. Gade lwa ofisyèl la nan lyen ki anwo a.

• Compulsory account and related relief on a court's own initiative or on petition; who may petition

  SCPA 2205 ↗

  Eksplikasyon klè e senp; tèks egzak lwa a poko ateste nan bibliyotèk nou an. Gade lwa ofisyèl la nan lyen ki anwo a.

• Voluntary account; who may petition

  SCPA 2208 ↗

  Eksplikasyon klè e senp; tèks egzak lwa a poko ateste nan bibliyotèk nou an. Gade lwa ofisyèl la nan lyen ki anwo a.

• Commissions of trustees, of donees of powers during minority and of donees of powers in trust under wills of persons dying, or lifetime trusts established, after August 31, 1956

  SCPA 2309 ↗

  Eksplikasyon klè e senp; tèks egzak lwa a poko ateste nan bibliyotèk nou an. Gade lwa ofisyèl la nan lyen ki anwo a.

• Joinder and representation of persons interested in estates

  SCPA 315 ↗

  Eksplikasyon klè e senp; tèks egzak lwa a poko ateste nan bibliyotèk nou an. Gade lwa ofisyèl la nan lyen ki anwo a.

Kesyon moun poze souvan