Short answer. Yes. Heirs, legatees, distributees, and creditors have the same privilege the court itself has to examine the executor or administrator on oath about any matter in an account, and the court must examine them on its correctness unless it is unopposed and satisfactorily proven.
What the law says
The court may examine the executor or administrator upon oath with respect to every matter relating to any account rendered by him, and shall so examine him as to the correctness of his account before the same is allowed, except when no objection is made to the allowance of the account and its correctness is satisfactorily established by competent proof. The heirs, legatees, distributees, and creditors of the estate shall have the same privilege as the executor or administrator of being examined on oath on any matter relating to an administration account.
Rule 85, Section 9 — Examinations on oath with respect to account. Read the full provision →
The court's own duty to examine
Before allowing an administrator's account, the court is not limited to simply reading the paperwork. It may examine the executor or administrator on oath about any matter relating to the account, and it must do so on the question of the account's correctness, unless no one objects to the account and its correctness is already satisfactorily established by competent proof.
Heirs and creditors get the same tool
This oath-based scrutiny is not reserved for the court alone. Heirs, legatees, distributees, and creditors of the estate are given the same privilege as the executor or administrator of being examined on oath on any matter relating to an administration account, giving interested parties a real way to probe the figures rather than simply accepting them. In practice, this lets an heir who suspects an entry was mischaracterized, or a creditor who doubts a disbursement was properly documented, put the administrator on the spot under oath rather than relying only on the court to raise the right questions, which matters because the people with the strongest incentive to catch errors are usually the parties directly affected by them, not the court itself.
When examination can be skipped
The formal examination on correctness is not mandatory in every single case; it may be dispensed with where no objection to the account's allowance is raised and the account's correctness is already satisfactorily established by competent proof, letting an uncontested, well-documented account move through the court more quickly and with less expense. This exception does not disable the right to examine under oath altogether — any heir, legatee, distributee, or creditor can still object and trigger the examination simply by raising a concern, so the shortcut only applies for as long as the account genuinely remains unopposed and properly proven, not because the right itself has been waived.
Related provisions
- Rule 85, Section 9 — Examinations on oath with respect to account
- Rule 85, Section 11 — Surety on bond may be party to accounting