N.Y. Debt. & Cred. Law § 15

Current through 2024 NY Law Chapter 553

Section 15 - Power of court

The court shall have power:

1. To allow claims, disallow claims, reconsider allowed or disallowed claims, and allow or disallow them against the estate.

2. To authorize the business of assignor to be conducted for limited periods by assignee, if necessary in the best interests of the estate, and allow additional compensation for such services.

3. To bring in and substitute additional persons or parties in the proceeding when necessary for the complete determination of a matter in controversy, by issuing a citation directed to such persons or parties and to be served as ordered by the court.

4. To reopen estates whenever it appears they were closed before being fully administered.

5. To determine all claims of assignors to their exemptions.

6. To authorize an assignee to bring an action or special proceeding, which he is hereby empowered to maintain, against any person who has received, taken or in any manner interfered with the estate, property or effects of the debtor in fraud of his creditors and which might have been avoided by a creditor of the assignor and the assignee may recover the property so transferred or its value.

6-a. To authorize an assignee to bring an action, which he is hereby empowered to maintain, against any person, who with reasonable cause to believe the assignor was insolvent as defined in section thirteen of this act, has within four months of the assignment received a voluntary transfer from the assignor of money or property for or on account of an antecedent debt, the effect of which transfer is to enable the creditor to obtain a greater percentage of his debt than some other creditor of the same class, and the assignee may recover the property so transferred or its value. For the purpose of this section a transfer shall be deemed to have been made when it is so far perfected that no creditor having a judgment on a simple contract without special priority (whether or not such a creditor exists) could have obtained an interest superior to that of the transferee therein. A transfer not so perfected prior to the assignment shall be deemed to have been made immediately before the assignment.

7. To direct upon the final settlement of the estate that the assignee pay to the lawful creditors their proportionate dividend notwithstanding their claim has not been presented in accordance with the notice sent out by the assignee. If a final dividend is ordered and paid not less than six months after notice to creditors to present their claims, the assignee shall have no liability to creditors whose claims have not been presented prior to entry of the order directing payment of the final dividend and which were unknown to him at that time. The court shall have no power to allow claims not presented within one year from the date of the recording of the assignment.

8. To allow secured creditors such sum only as to the court seems to be owing over and above the value of their securities.

9. To examine the parties and witnesses on oath in relation to the assignment and accounting and all matters connected therewith and to compel their attendance for that purpose and their answers to questions, and the production of books and papers;

10. To require the assignee to render and file an interim account of his proceedings within six months of assuming his duties unless the estate is sooner distributed and to require the assignee to render and file a final account of his proceedings, and to enforce the same in the manner provided by law for compelling an executor or administrator to comply with a surrogate's order for an account;

11. To take and state an interim and a final account as submitted by the assignee, or, as to the final account, to appoint a referee to take and state it if demanded, within ten days after the date has been fixed for the final hearing to consider the judicial settlement of the account, by a creditor or creditors whose claim or claims represent one-fourth or more in amount of all claims scheduled or filed. The referee shall be an official referee if such a referee is available and shall have the powers enumerated in subdivision nine of this section;

12. To settle and adjudicate upon the account and the claims presented, and to decree payment of any creditor's just proportional part of the fund, or, in case of a partial accounting, so much thereof as the circumstances of the case render just and proper;

13. To discharge the assignee and his surety at any time, upon performance of the decree, from all further liability upon matters included in the accounting, to creditors appearing and to creditors not having appeared after due citation, or not having presented their claims after due advertisement;

14. On proof of a composition between the assignor and his creditors, to discharge the assignee and his sureties from all further liability to the compounding creditors appearing or duly cited, and to authorize the assignee to release the assets to the assignor; provided, however, that if there be any creditors not assenting to the composition, the court shall determine what proportion of the fund shall be paid to or reserved for creditors not assenting, which shall not be less than the sum or share to which they would be entitled if no composition had been made, and may decree distribution accordingly;

15. To adjourn the proceedings from time to time, grant further orders if necessary, and amend the petition and proceedings thereon before decree in furtherance of justice;

16. To punish as for a contempt any disobedience or violation of any order made or process issued in pursuance of this article, and to restrain by arrest and imprisonment any party or witness when it shall satisfactorily appear that such party or witness is about to leave the jurisdiction of the court, and to take bail to secure the attendance of such party or witness, to be prosecuted under the order of the court in case of forfeiture by and for the benefit of the party in whose interest such examination shall be ordered;

17. To exercise such other or further powers in respect to the proceedings and the accounting therein as a surrogate may by law exercise in reference to an accounting by an executor or administrator.

N.Y. Debt. and Cred. Law § 15