New York Trust and Estate Accounting Requirements

Current as of September 2026. General information, not legal or tax advice.

New York runs on its own statutes rather than the uniform codes, and — unusually — the form of a fiduciary account comes from court rule and administratively issued forms rather than from the legislature. Trust and estate law sits in the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law and the Surrogate’s Court Procedure Act. There is no general statute requiring a trustee to account periodically as a matter of course; accounting is either compelled by petition or offered voluntarily for judicial settlement.

Who must provide an accounting in New York

SCPA 2205 allows the court, on its own initiative or on petition, to order a fiduciary to file an intermediate or final account. The list of who may petition is broad, and includes creditors, interested persons, successor and co-fiduciaries, the Attorney General where escheat is possible, and — unusually among the states — the surety on the fiduciary’s bond. SCPA 2206 governs the proceedings that follow a compulsory accounting petition. SCPA 2208 is the voluntary route, under which a fiduciary presents an account and petitions for judicial settlement, generally once the claim period has expired or seven months have passed since letters issued. Because the duty is triggered rather than automatic, a New York trustee who has never been asked may have no filed accounting at all, and the reconstruction work when a demand finally arrives can span many years.

What a New York trust accounting must contain

No statute prescribes the contents. The governing provision is 22 NYCRR 207.40©, which requires that accounts conform, so far as practical, with such forms as may be provided from time to time by the Chief Administrator of the Courts. The Unified Court System publishes Trust Accounting Forms and Non-Trust Accounting Forms, built around separate principal and income schedules, along with the Inventory of Assets and a set of accounting checklists. Every account filed must carry the accounting party’s affidavit under SCPA 2209, swearing that it is a true statement of all receipts and disbursements and that the accountant knows of no error or omission prejudicial to any creditor or interested person. An account filed without that affidavit is incomplete.

Income and principal allocation in New York

New York’s principal and income act is EPTL Article 11-A, cited in the statute as the New York uniform principal and income act. It is the 1997 version of the uniform act. New York has not adopted the 2018 revision, the Uniform Fiduciary Income and Principal Act, which California, Florida, Washington and Colorado have. For a firm or a fiduciary operating in more than one state, this is the difference that matters most: allocation analysis prepared under UFIPA does not carry over to New York, and the unitrust and power-to-adjust mechanics are not the same.

Filing an accounting with the New York Surrogate’s Court

The inventory obligation is a court rule rather than a statute. 22 NYCRR 207.20 requires an Inventory of Assets within nine months of letters, and it is a lighter document than most states require: probate assets are reported only by value category letter, from A for under $10,000 through G for $500,000 or more, and non-probate assets are reported yes or no. Failure to file can lead the court to refuse certificates, revoke letters, and disallow commissions and legal fees. Accounts are filed under the SCPA 2205, 2206 or 2208 machinery, with process on judicial settlement governed by SCPA 2210. Because the account format comes from administratively issued forms, it can change without legislation; confirm the current form before beginning work.

When a New York accounting is contested

Objections are filed in the accounting proceeding, and the account becomes the evidentiary record of the fiduciary’s administration. The separation of principal and income drives the analysis, because the official schedules are built that way and an account prepared on a combined basis cannot be reconciled against them without being rebuilt. Where a trustee has gone years without accounting, the contested proceeding is usually the first time the entire administration is examined at once.

How T.E.A. Fiduciary helps

We prepare New York trust and estate accountings on the official accounting forms, with the separate principal and income schedules the Surrogate’s Court expects, as a licensed, insured CPA firm practicing fiduciary accounting exclusively. We do not prepare tax returns. We work alongside your attorney and your tax preparer so that the accounting and the Form 1041 agree.

This page provides general information about New York fiduciary accounting requirements and is not legal or tax advice. Statutes, court rules and official forms change, and court rules in particular can change administratively; confirm current requirements with counsel.