§ 7705.Recording or filing instrument settling account.

Not every trust accounting has to go through a court proceeding. CPLR 7705 gives trustees and interested parties a way to settle an account by private instrument and still give it public, provable effect. If a trustee under an express trust not created by will executes an instrument settling an account, in whole or in part, together with one or more persons interested in the trust's subject matter, none of them under a disability of infancy or incompetency, that instrument may be recorded or filed in the office of the county clerk or register where the trustee resides, or, for a corporate trustee, where its principal office sits.

The instrument has to be acknowledged before it can be recorded or filed. Once it is, the record itself, or a certified copy of either the record or the original instrument, becomes prima facie evidence of the instrument's contents and of its due execution. That evidentiary effect means the recorded instrument can establish, without more, that the accounting it describes was properly settled and executed, unless someone comes forward with evidence to the contrary.