One of the most common issues arising in the context of estate and trust administration in my experience is the refusal or failure of a fiduciary to account to the beneficiaries and/or the cestui que trust. Related to that issue are demands for an accounting when there is no right to request an accounting. The method of accounting, informal versus formal, has been written about in numerous places so it is not the purpose of this article to elucidate those matters here. (See for example, “The Basics of Settling an Executor’s Account” by Patricia C. Marcin, New York State Bar Journal, Spring 1999.) This article targets the variety of reasons as to why a fiduciary does not account and when a fiduciary can rightfully refuse to render an account.
Requirement to Account
The general rule is that all fiduciaries are required to account to the beneficiaries for whom they hold the estate. 42 NY Jur. 2d Decedent’s Estate §2079; Matter of Iannone, 104 Misc.2d 5, 431 NYS2d 904 (Surr. Ct. Monroe Cty. 1980). Remarkably, some fiduciaries think that a close personal association with the decedent and a high degree of familiarity in their personal relationship relieves them of the responsibility to account; it does not. The duty to account is absolute and is not varied by the amount of knowledge that a beneficiary may possess respecting the actions and transactions of the fiduciary in the performance of his or her duties. So beneficiaries that know from other sources or even informally from the fiduciary as to what transpired in the administration may still request an accounting.
