Effect of payment · as in force on May 31, 2026
§ 7-5.4 Effect of payment
A financial institution which, upon the death of a depositor and prior to service upon it of a restraining order, injunction or other appropriate process from a court of competent jurisdiction prohibiting payment, makes payment to a beneficiary or if the beneficiary is under eighteen years of age, to the guardian of the property or to the parent or parents of the infant beneficiary pursuant to section 7-5.3, shall, to the extent of such payment, be released from liability to any person claiming a right to the funds and the receipt or acquittance of the person to whom payment is made shall be a valid and sufficient release and discharge of the financial institution.
After the depositor dies, a financial institution that pays the beneficiary—or an authorized parent or guardian for a beneficiary under 18 years old—before receiving a court restraint is released from liability to competing claimants to the extent paid. ★ The recipient’s receipt fully discharges the institution for that payment.
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.
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.