🔑 Decedent-Owned Records Are Not Fiduciary Property (Rule + Authority) (New York)

This rule governs who owns records that belonged to a decedent after death, when a fiduciary has custody of them. The ownership label matters because it often controls whether a fiduciary can resist producing records in disclosure disputes.

If the records belonged to the decedent before death, a fiduciary generally cannot treat them as personal possessions simply because the fiduciary holds them.