The Brooklyn Public Administrator's Office "failed to properly carry out its fiduciary responsibilities," according to an audit by the New York City comptroller. The report faults the office for purported missteps such as charging excessive legal fees to small estates and failing to identify, collect and credit some decedents' assets. The June 28 report offered 18 recommendations on how the office could improve as it carries out its duties administering the estates of those who die without wills or family members able to administer the estate.
But Kings County Public Administrator Bruce Stein defended his office and questioned the audit's accuracy in a response included in the audit. For instance, the audit questioned the P.A.'s imposition of stated legal fees—as opposed to the standard 6 percent rate—for estates under $30,000. The office used this payment method until 2012. Stein told the Law Journal the excessive fee claim was a "genuine disagreement over the interpretation of the prior guidelines." Before new guidelines were promulgated last year on the payment of legal services for small estates, Stein claimed the P.A.'s counsel "was paid in accordance with a fee schedule that was used by other Public Administrators within New York City."
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