EPTL § 2-1.10

Provisions relating to infants and minors · as in force on May 31, 2026

§ 2-1.10 Provisions relating to infants and minors

(a) Unless the creator expressly provides to the contrary, in any instrument executed prior to September first, nineteen hundred seventy-four, the words "minor", "minority", "infant", "infancy", "majority", "adult" and words of like import shall mean or refer to a person or a class of persons under the age of twenty-one years or who shall have reached such age, according to the context, and, unless otherwise expressly provided in any instrument executed on or after September first, nineteen hundred seventy-four shall mean or refer to a person or a class of persons under the age of eighteen years or who shall have reached such age, according to the context, except that any designation of a testamentary guardian of a "minor" or an "infant" shall refer to a guardianship of a person who has not reached the age of eighteen years, regardless of the date of the instrument containing the designation.

(b) This act shall not apply to distributions made subsequent to September first, nineteen hundred seventy-four and prior to the effective date of this act.

Official sourcehttps://www.nysenate.gov/legislation/laws/EPT/2-1.10

In plain English

(a) Unless the creator expressly says otherwise, age terms in an instrument signed before September 1, 1974 refer to age 21, while those in an instrument signed on or after September 1, 1974 refer to age 18. A testamentary guardian for a “minor” or “infant” always means guardianship until age 18, whatever the instrument’s date. ★
(b) This act does not apply to distributions made after September 1, 1974 but before this act’s effective date.

Marked in the text: penalties, time limits, sums of money. Editorial emphasis added by this edition; it does not appear in the statute as enacted.

In print

This provision appears in Volume 1 — The Surrogate's Court in Plain English; Volume 3 — The Surrogate's Court: Court Rules & the EPTL; Volume 5 — Your Career: Surrogate's Court in Plain English.