Art. 4203.Compelling Tutor to Account

Tutors owe the court periodic accountings of their administration, including the annual accounts and the eventual final account addressed later in Chapter 10. Article 4203 puts part of the burden of enforcing that obligation on the undertutor, rather than leaving it entirely to the court's own initiative or to an interested party who may not be watching closely.

Two situations trigger the duty. The first is a missed deadline: once a tutor fails to file the required annual account, the undertutor must apply to the court for an order compelling one. The second is broader and discretionary in scope, covering any other time when the circumstances indicate an account should be filed, which can include a suspected irregularity, a pending transaction that calls for a clear picture of the estate, or the approach of a resignation or removal.

This duty turns the undertutor's oversight role from something exercised only when the tutor brings a matter forward into something the undertutor has to pursue on the undertutor's own initiative. An undertutor who lets an overdue account go unaddressed is not a passive bystander; the undertutor is failing an affirmative obligation the law assigns.