How to Compel a New York Executor to Account and File Objections

By Albert Goodwin, Esq., Law Offices of Albert Goodwin, New York. Last reviewed: 2025.

This page is for beneficiaries of a New York estate who cannot get answers from the executor. It walks through the one tool the Surrogate's Court Procedure Act gives you for that problem: a petition to compel an accounting under SCPA § 2205, followed by objections to the account once it is filed. For the broader subject of what an executor owes beneficiaries, see our page on breach of fiduciary duty. For getting the executor replaced, see removal of an executor or administrator. This page stays on the compel-and-object process.

We represent beneficiaries who bring these petitions and executors who have to answer them. Call (212) 233-1233 or write to email@nyestateslawyer.com to discuss your estate.

What an Accounting Is and Why You Would Compel One

An accounting is a sworn report, in a format prescribed by the Surrogate's Court, that lists everything the executor received, everything the executor paid out, what is left, and how the executor proposes to distribute it. Until an executor accounts, a beneficiary is working from guesses. After the executor accounts, the beneficiary has a document to test, line by line, in court.

Executors are supposed to account on their own when administration is finished. That is a voluntary accounting, brought by petition for judicial settlement under SCPA §§ 2208 and 2210. Many executors never get around to it. Some send beneficiaries an informal spreadsheet with a receipt and release to sign. Others send nothing. In each of those situations the beneficiary's remedy is to petition the court to compel a formal account.

Who Has Standing to Compel an Accounting

SCPA § 2205(2) lists who may petition. For an estate, that includes:

• A person interested: a beneficiary named in the will, or a distributee if there is no will or a partial intestacy.
• A creditor: someone with an unpaid claim against the estate.
• A co-fiduciary: one executor may compel another to account.
• A surety on the executor's bond.
• The Attorney General: where a charity is a beneficiary.
• The fiduciary of a deceased beneficiary: if a beneficiary died before receiving a share, the executor of that beneficiary's estate steps into the beneficiary's shoes.

A beneficiary who received a specific bequest in full, and nothing more, generally cannot compel a full accounting. The court looks at whether the petitioner still has a financial stake in how the rest of the estate was handled. Residuary beneficiaries, who take whatever is left after expenses and specific gifts, almost always have standing because every dollar spent affects their share.

When the Right to Compel Ripens

Technically, a beneficiary may petition at any time after letters testamentary issue. In practice, the court will not order a full account during the first seven months of administration. Two statutes explain why. Under EPTL § 11-1.5(a), an executor cannot be required to pay legacies until seven months after letters. Under SCPA § 1802, the executor is protected against claims presented after that seven-month window. The executor is entitled to use that period to collect assets and sort out creditors.

Once the seven months have run, the picture changes. If a year or more has passed since letters issued and the beneficiaries have not received a formal account or a reasoned explanation for the delay, a petition to compel is ordinarily granted. The longer the delay and the less the executor has communicated, the easier the petition is. Compare our sample NYC probate timeline to see where a normal estate should be at each stage.

There is an outer limit in the other direction. A proceeding to compel an accounting is subject to the six-year limitations period of CPLR 213, which starts to run when the executor openly repudiates the duty to account or when the fiduciary relationship otherwise ends. Do not assume you can wait indefinitely.

A Less Drastic First Step: SCPA § 2102(1)

If your complaint is silence rather than suspected theft, consider SCPA § 2102(1) before § 2205. Section 2102(1) lets a person interested petition the court to direct the executor to supply information about the estate's assets and affairs that is relevant to the petitioner's interest. It is faster and narrower than a compulsory accounting, and the information it produces often tells you whether a full accounting proceeding is worth the cost. Beneficiaries who are not even sure what the will says should start with our page on whether beneficiaries are entitled to a copy of the will.

The Compulsory Accounting Proceeding, Step by Step

1. Petition (SCPA § 2205): You file a verified petition in the Surrogate's Court of the county that issued the letters. The petition identifies the decedent, the date letters issued, the executor, your interest in the estate, and the fact that no account has been rendered. It asks the court to direct the executor to file an account within a fixed time.
2. Citation or order to show cause: The clerk issues process returnable on a court date. In the New York City counties and Nassau, the return date is commonly four to eight weeks after filing. The executor must be served in the manner the court directs.
3. Return date (SCPA § 2206): The executor appears, usually through counsel. The executor can consent to account, ask for time, or argue that an account should not be required (for example, because the estate was fully distributed and everyone signed releases). If the court is not satisfied, it signs an order directing the executor to file an account within a set period. Courts commonly allow 30 to 90 days, longer for large or complicated estates.
4. Enforcement if the executor ignores the order: The order to account is a court order. The court can hold a non-complying executor in contempt, and failure to file an account as directed is an independent ground for revoking letters under SCPA § 719(1). Executors who stonewall at this stage usually find themselves fighting a removal petition as well. See removal proceedings.
5. The account is filed: The executor files the account in the official schedule format along with a petition for judicial settlement. A new citation issues to every interested party, with a return date on which objections are due or on which the objectant must obtain an extension.
6. Examination of the executor (SCPA § 2211): Before objections are due, any party may examine the executor under oath and demand the records that support the account. Most experienced objectants' counsel insist on the § 2211 examination first. You learn what the executor will say before you commit to written objections, and the court routinely extends the objection deadline until the examination is finished.
7. Objections: Verified written objections are filed and served. The requirements are discussed below.
8. Discovery: After objections, the matter is a contested proceeding and the disclosure rules of CPLR Article 31 apply through SCPA § 102. Document demands, subpoenas to banks and brokerages, depositions, and expert disclosure all follow.
9. Conference, mediation, and trial: Most Surrogate's Courts hold one or more conferences and may refer the parties to mediation. Objections that do not settle are tried before the Surrogate or a court attorney-referee. The court then issues a decree settling the account, with any surcharge against the executor.

Realistic duration: a petition to compel, with no fight over whether an account is required, can produce a filed account in four to six months. A contested accounting with objections, discovery, and a hearing commonly takes eighteen months to three years in the New York City courts.

How to Read the Account: Schedules A Through K

New York accounts follow a uniform set of schedules. Knowing what belongs in each one is how you spot what is missing or wrong.

• Schedule A (principal received): Every asset that passed under the will or by intestacy, valued as of the date of death. Check it against the inventory and the estate tax return. A bank account, brokerage account, or piece of real property you know existed but do not see here is your first objection.
• Schedule A-1 (realized increases): Gains on sale of assets above date-of-death value.
• Schedule A-2 (income collected): Interest, dividends, and rent earned after death. If the estate held a rental property for two years and this schedule shows no rent, ask why.
• Schedule B (realized decreases): Losses on sale below date-of-death value. A house sold to the executor's relative for less than its appraised value shows up here as a loss.
• Schedule C (funeral and administration expenses paid): Funeral costs, legal fees, accountant fees, appraisers, insurance, repairs, and the like. Personal expenses of the executor disguised as estate expenses usually hide in this schedule.
• Schedule C-1 (unpaid administration expenses): Bills the executor proposes to pay before distribution.
• Schedule D (creditors' claims): Claims paid, claims rejected, and claims still open. Check whether the executor paid a claim that was time-barred or that belonged to a friend.
• Schedule E (distributions made): Legacies and advance distributions already paid. Confirm that your co-beneficiaries did not receive more than you did without a reason in the will.
• Schedule F (new investments and exchanges): What the executor did with the money while holding it. This is where the prudent investor rule of EPTL § 11-2.3 gets tested.
• Schedule G (principal remaining on hand): What is left to distribute.
• Schedule H (interested parties and proposed distribution): Who the executor says gets what, and in what amounts.
• Schedule I (computation of commissions): The executor's proposed fee, computed under SCPA § 2307. See the next section.
• Schedule J (other pertinent facts and cash reconciliation): Narrative disclosures, including whether the executor engaged in any transaction with the estate personally, plus a reconciliation proving the cash figures tie out.
• Schedule K (estate taxes): Taxes paid and how the burden was allocated among beneficiaries.

Checking the Executor's Commissions (SCPA § 2307)

Executor commissions in New York are set by statute, and Schedule I is one of the most common places to find an overcharge. The rates under SCPA § 2307(1) are:

• 5% on the first $100,000;
• 4% on the next $200,000;
• 3% on the next $700,000;
• 2.5% on the next $4,000,000;
• 2% on everything above $5,000,000.

Half of the commission is for receiving the asset and half for paying it out. On a commissionable estate of $600,000 the arithmetic is $5,000 plus $8,000 plus $9,000, for a total of $22,000. Points beneficiaries should check:

• Non-commissionable property: Property specifically bequeathed to a named beneficiary is not commissionable. Real property that passes directly to the devisee without being sold by the executor is not commissionable. Joint accounts, retirement accounts with named beneficiaries, and life insurance do not pass through the estate at all and cannot be counted.
• Multiple executors: Under SCPA § 2307(5), if the estate is under $100,000, one commission is divided among all executors. Between $100,000 and $300,000, two full commissions are divided among them. At $300,000 or more, each executor, up to three, may take a full commission.
• Commissions taken early: Commissions are allowed on the settlement of the account. An executor who paid herself commissions before the decree, without a court order under SCPA § 2310 or § 2311, has taken money she was not yet entitled to. That alone supports an objection and, depending on the facts, a demand for interest.
• Attorney-executors: If the executor is also the estate's lawyer, scrutinize whether the same work is being billed as both legal fees on Schedule C and commissions on Schedule I.

Filing Objections

Objections are due on the return date of the citation on the account unless the court extends the time. Under the Uniform Rules for Surrogate's Court (22 NYCRR Part 207), objections must be in writing, verified, and specific. A general statement that the account is wrong will be dismissed. Each objection should state the schedule, the item, the amount, and the ground. The format looks like this:

Objection 1 (Schedule A). Objectant objects to Schedule A on the ground that it omits the decedent's brokerage account at [institution], account ending 4321, titled solely in the decedent's name, with a date-of-death value of approximately $212,000.

Objection 2 (Schedule B). Objectant objects to the sale of the real property at [address] reported on Schedule B on the grounds that the property was sold to the executor's son for $410,000 when its appraised value was $540,000, that the executor did not list the property or obtain competing offers, and that the sale was a self-interested transaction not disclosed to the beneficiaries.

Objection 3 (Schedule I). Objectant objects to the commissions computed on Schedule I on the ground that they include the cooperative apartment specifically bequeathed to [name] under Article THIRD of the will, which is not commissionable under SCPA § 2307.

Objections should also state the relief requested: that the item be disallowed, that the executor be surcharged in a stated amount with interest, that commissions be denied or reduced, and that the executor's legal fees for defending the objections be charged to the executor personally rather than to the estate.

Common Grounds for Objection

• Assets omitted from Schedule A.
• Estate property sold to the executor, a relative, or a friend, or sold without exposure to the market.
• Personal expenses on Schedule C: the executor's travel, meals, car, or cell phone.
• Legal fees that are unreasonable for the size and difficulty of the estate. The court fixes attorney fees under SCPA § 2110 regardless of what the executor agreed to pay.
• Rent not collected from a beneficiary or relative who occupied estate real property. See beneficiary living in an inherited house.
• Failure to collect debts owed to the decedent, including loans to family members.
• Cash held in a non-interest-bearing account for years, or speculative investments, in violation of EPTL § 11-2.3.
• Estate tax penalties and interest caused by late filing.
• Unexplained delay in distribution.
• Commissions computed on non-commissionable property or taken before the decree.

If the account itself reveals that the executor is holding property that belongs to the estate in his own name, a separate turnover proceeding under SCPA § 2103 may be needed. See discovery and turnover proceedings.

Surcharge and Interest

When an objection is sustained and the court finds the estate lost money because of the executor's conduct, the remedy is a surcharge: a money judgment against the executor personally, payable to the estate. The court has discretion over interest. It commonly applies the 9% statutory rate under CPLR 5004 from the date of the improper act, and it may award a lower rate where the executor acted in good faith. The court may also deny or reduce commissions, refuse to allow the executor's legal fees as an estate expense, and, where the misconduct is serious, revoke letters. The substantive standards that govern surcharge are covered on our breach of fiduciary duty page; this page does not repeat them.

A Hypothetical to Show How the Pieces Fit

Take a hypothetical Queens estate. The decedent left a will dividing everything equally among three children and naming the eldest as executor. Letters issued two years ago. The executor sold the house in the first year, has made no distributions, and has not answered her siblings' emails in eight months.

The two younger siblings are residuary beneficiaries, so they have standing. The seven-month period has long passed, so the petition to compel is timely and likely to be granted. On the return date the executor consents to account within sixty days. The account arrives. Schedule B shows the house sold for $150,000 less than the appraisal on the estate tax return, to a buyer who shares the executor's surname. Schedule C lists $18,000 in "travel and management" with no receipts. Schedule I computes commissions on the full gross estate, including a $90,000 joint account that never passed through the estate, and Schedule E shows the executor already paid herself those commissions eighteen months ago.

The objectants would examine the executor under SCPA § 2211, subpoena the closing file and the executor's bank records, and then file objections to Schedules B, C, E, and I, seeking a surcharge for the lost sale proceeds and the unsupported expenses, disallowance of commissions on the joint account, and interest on the commissions taken early. What the court ultimately decides depends on the proof at the hearing. The point of the example is that each problem maps to a specific schedule and a specific statute, which is how objections have to be written.

If You Are the Executor Being Compelled

A petition to compel is not an accusation of theft. It is a demand for the report you were always going to have to produce. Executors who respond quickly, consent to account, and file a complete set of schedules with supporting records usually end the proceeding with a decree and a discharge. Executors who delay, file incomplete schedules, or cannot document expenses turn a routine proceeding into a surcharge case. If you have been served with a citation to account, have the account prepared by counsel who files them regularly, and do not pay yourself commissions before the court allows them.

Trust Accountings

Trustees can also be compelled to account under SCPA § 2205, and trust accounts use a parallel schedule format adapted for income and principal. The standing rules, the trustee commission statute (SCPA § 2309), and the issues that arise over multi-year investment performance are different enough that we treat them separately. See beneficiaries' rights to trust information.

Frequently Asked Questions

How long does an executor have to provide an accounting in New York?

There is no fixed statutory deadline for a voluntary account. An executor cannot be required to pay legacies until seven months after letters (EPTL § 11-1.5), and courts give executors reasonable time beyond that to finish administration. After roughly a year with no account and no explanation, a beneficiary's petition to compel is ordinarily granted. Once the court orders an account, the executor must file within the time the order sets, commonly 30 to 90 days.

Can an executor refuse to show beneficiaries the accounting?

An executor can decline to share informal records voluntarily, but cannot refuse a court order. If the executor will not provide information, petition under SCPA § 2102(1) for information or under SCPA § 2205 for a compulsory account. Once the account is filed with the court, it is served on you as a party and you may examine the executor under oath under SCPA § 2211.

What does it cost to compel an accounting?

Court filing fees are set by SCPA § 2402. The fee on the account itself is scaled to the value of the estate accounted for and tops out at $1,250 for estates of $500,000 or more. The larger cost is legal fees. A straightforward petition to compel, where the executor consents to account, is far less expensive than contested objections that go through discovery and a hearing.

Who pays the legal fees in an accounting proceeding?

The executor's reasonable fees for preparing and filing the account are normally an estate expense. If the executor is surcharged, the court may direct that the executor's fees for defending the objections be paid by the executor personally. An objecting beneficiary generally pays his own counsel, although under SCPA § 2110 the court may direct payment from the estate where the objections benefited the estate as a whole, and in some circumstances may charge fees against a particular beneficiary's share.

What is the deadline to file objections to an accounting?

Objections are due on the return date of the citation on the account. The court routinely grants extensions, especially where the objectant has demanded a SCPA § 2211 examination of the executor. Ask for the extension on or before the return date. Missing it without an extension can result in the account being settled without your objections.

Should I sign the receipt and release the executor sent me instead?

Not without reviewing an informal account and the supporting records first. A receipt, release, and refunding agreement waives your right to a judicial accounting for the matters it covers. Releases can be set aside for fraud or failure to disclose, but that is a separate lawsuit. Signing is appropriate when the informal account is complete and checks out, and it saves the estate the cost of a formal proceeding. Signing because the executor says the money will come faster is how beneficiaries lose claims.

What happens if the executor ignores the order to account?

The court may hold the executor in contempt and may revoke letters under SCPA § 719(1) for failing to account as directed. A successor fiduciary is then appointed, and the removed executor still has to account to the successor. Executors who refuse to account rarely improve their position by refusing.

Can I compel an accounting from the executor's estate if the executor died?

Yes. SCPA § 2207 provides for judicial settlement of the account of a deceased fiduciary. The petition is brought against the fiduciary of the executor's own estate, who must account for the executor's handling of the first estate.

Talk to an Accounting Litigation Attorney in New York

If an executor has stopped communicating, or you have received an account that does not add up, we can review the file, tell you whether a petition to compel or objections are warranted, and handle the proceeding in any Surrogate's Court in New York State. If you are an executor who has been served with a citation to account, we can prepare the account and defend it. Call the Law Offices of Albert Goodwin at (212) 233-1233 or email email@nyestateslawyer.com. For the voluntary accounting process from the executor's side, see our estate accountings page. For disputes that have not yet reached the courthouse, see beneficiary and executor conflict.