2016 GAL Training Program Accounting Proceedings Footnote #2
An informal account may be filed in Court pursuant to SCPA 2202 ( “Recording or Filing Instruments Settling Accounts in Part or in Whole”), but it is unlikely a Guardian as Litem would be involved in such a filing. SCPA 2203 (“Decree on Filing Instruments Approving Accounts”) is on the books, but in my experience it is rarely used. My understanding is that this statute became outdated when SCPA 315(8) was added in 1981. This provides: “8. Nonjudicial settlement of accounts of fiduciaries. Unless the instrument expressly provides otherwise, an instrument settling an account, executed by all the persons upon whom service of process would be required in a proceeding for the judicial settlement of the account, shall be binding and conclusive on all persons upon whom service of process would not be required to the same extent as that instrument binds the persons who executed it.” Only once in approximately forty years of practice have I been involved in a court proceeding involving Section 2203, in the early 1990s, and that was at the instance of a lawyer whose practice had peaked in the 1960s, and who was winding up his affairs.