N.Y.
County Law Section 551
Court and trust funds
1.
Upon demand being made in writing by any person interested therein either as beneficiary or as guardian, committee, conservator, next of kin or personal representative of any beneficiary, the county treasurer shall within ten days after the first day of July in each year make and file in the office of the clerk of his county, a special report in respect to any trust in which the person in behalf of whom the said demand is made may be interested, which shall contain a statement of all moneys or securities in his hands belonging to infants, or other persons, for whom invested and how invested with a particular description of such securities, containing a statement of the amount due thereon for principal and interest with a statement of his account for each infant up to the date of said report, the amount in his hands invested and uninvested and to whom the same belongs and if he has in his hands any money not invested such report shall state the amount thereof, the length of time the same has been in his hands uninvested and the reasons therefor and whether the moneys so uninvested are for principal and interest and the length of time any principal sum thereof shall have remained so uninvested during the year preceding the date of such report, which report he shall verify to be in all respects true.2.
Whenever required so to do by the state comptroller he shall commence and maintain an action at the expense of the county for the recovery of all moneys and securities paid into court, or that belong to any heir, litigant or party, or that stand to the credit of any action or proceeding, which have come into the hands of any county treasurer whose right to office already has expired, or hereafter shall expire, or which have been placed to his credit in any bank or depositary, or with which he is in any way chargeable and which have not been delivered to his successor and for all increase, loss, penalty, damage or expense lawfully chargeable to such treasurer in connection therewith. A party to whom such county treasurer may have transferred or assigned any security or other property belonging to any fund held by him may be made a defendant in the same action and the rights of the several parties determined therein. Any action so brought at the direction of the state comptroller shall not be discontinued or compromised without the approval of the state comptroller.3.
Whenever any county treasurer, after service on him personally, or by leaving at his office, in his absence, with some person having charge thereof, or if such service cannot be made, by leaving with some person of suitable age and discretion at his place of residence, or at his last place of residence in the county, if he has departed therefrom, of a certified copy of an order or judgment of the court, directing the payment or delivery of any money, stocks, securities or other investments held by him pursuant to an order of the court, to any person or persons, shall fail or neglect so to do, or where any county treasurer has invested or loaned any moneys held by him contrary to an order of the court or of law and shall fail or neglect when required so to do, to pay over the amount of the moneys so invested to the person or persons entitled thereto, the court may, by order, direct that an action be brought upon the official bond of such treasurer, against him and his sureties for the amount so directed to be paid or delivered, or of the moneys so invested in inadequate or worthless security for the benefit of the person or persons in whose behalf the direction shall have been by such order given and whose name or names appear therein, or their assigns and thereupon such action may be brought for such purpose.
Source:
Section 551 — Court and trust funds, https://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/CNT/551 (updated Sep. 22, 2014; accessed Oct. 26, 2024).
