Short answer. When the person ceases in his functions. Article 1153 provides that the period for actions to demand accounting runs from the day the persons who should render it cease in their functions, and that the period for an action arising from the result runs from when that result was recognised by agreement.
What the law says
The period for prescription of actions to demand accounting runs from the day the persons who should render the same cease in their functions. The period for the action arising from the result of the accounting runs from the date when said result was recognized by agreement of the interested parties.
Civil Code, Article 1153 — Actions on the Result of an Accounting. Read the full provision →
Two claims, two starting dates
The article separates things people tend to run together. The first is the demand for an accounting itself, that the person who handled the money explain what he did with it, and that period runs from the day the persons who should render the same cease in their functions. The second is the action arising out of what the accounting shows, the claim for the money, and that one runs from the date when said result was recognized by agreement of the interested parties. The two rarely begin on the same day.
Ceasing in one's functions is a fact, and often untidy
An agent whose authority was withdrawn, an administrator whose appointment ended, a manager who resigned or was removed, a relative who simply stopped handling the account — each stopped at a moment, but the moment may be recorded nowhere. Where the arrangement was informal, look for the practical markers: the last transaction he made, the handover of records or of a passbook, the day somebody else took over. Those are the facts a court will be asked to work from, so identify them early.
The second clock needs agreement
This is the part most often misunderstood. That period does not run from the day the accounting is delivered, nor from the day you first disagreed with it. It runs from when the result was recognized by agreement of the interested parties. So where the figures were never accepted and remain in dispute, the event that starts that particular clock has not happened. Which is a reason to be careful about signing anything acknowledging a computation you have not verified, and equally a reason to date it if you do accept one.
Assemble the relationship before the figures
Whatever created the authority — the power of attorney, the appointment, the letters or messages setting the arrangement up — and whatever shows when it ended. Then the records themselves: statements, passbooks, receipts, transfers, and the years each of them covers. A written demand for an accounting, dated and sent so that receipt can be proved, is worth making promptly; it also serves as the written extrajudicial demand that Article 1155 treats as interrupting prescription.
Related provisions
- Civil Code, Article 1155 — The Three Ways to Interrupt Prescription
- Civil Code, Article 1150 — When the Clock Starts