Recently, Surrogate and Appellate Courts throughout the state have been witness to an assortment of issues affecting trusts and estates. Indeed, opinions in the Third and Fourth Departments have respectively addressed testamentary capacity and the validity of a release, while surrogate’s in the metropolitan area have confronted discovery requests, and the elective share. Each is the subject of this month’s article.

Release Is No Defense to Accounting Objections

In Matter of Alford, 2018 N.Y. App. Div. 682 (4th Dept.), the Appellate Division, Fourth Department, reversed an order of the Surrogate’s Court, Erie County (Howe, S.), which determined that a release signed by a beneficiary was valid, and constituted a defense to his objections to the executor’s final accounting.