§ 1724 Custodians

If a child has money or property being held for them by a custodian under New York's Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, the Surrogate's Court has authority over that arrangement. This means the court can step in when needed to oversee how the custodian manages the child's assets.

The custodian is the adult who manages money or property for the child until the child reaches the age set by law (usually 18 or 21, depending on how the gift was set up). The court's power over the custodian and the child's account comes from the specific rules laid out in the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law, not from separate Surrogate's Court rules. This keeps things consistent, since that other law already spells out exactly what custodians can and cannot do with a child's assets.

In practical terms, this rule tells you that if there's a dispute or question about how a custodian is handling a child's money or property, the Surrogate's Court is the place where that issue would be resolved. The court applies the standards set in the Estates, Powers and Trusts Law to decide what's right.