§ 8.01-617.Settlement of accounts of special receivers and special commissioners.

Special receivers and special commissioners — officers appointed to handle funds or debts in a particular case rather than across a court's whole docket — still have to answer for what they did with the money. This section requires every circuit court, by an order entered of record, to appoint one of its commissioners in chancery, holding office at the court's pleasure, to state and settle the accounts of all special receivers and special commissioners holding funds or evidences of debt subject to the court's order.

The obligation to account is not indefinite. Unless a special receiver or commissioner's accounts have already been verified, approved, and ordered recorded by the court, he must, with reasonable promptness and not longer than four months after money in his hands should have been distributed — or at other intervals the court specifies — present the designated commissioner in chancery an accurate, signed statement of receipts and disbursements, backed by proper vouchers. The commissioner in chancery examines and verifies that statement, certifies it as correct or notes any errors, files it in the cause, and presents it to the court.

Two built-in checks round out the scheme. If the regular commissioner in chancery is himself the special receiver or commissioner whose accounts need settling, the court may appoint one of its other commissioners to do the job instead. And a special receiver or commissioner who misses the settlement deadline forfeits his compensation, or as much of it as the court orders — a direct financial consequence for letting an accounting slip. The court may also send its own general receiver through this same settlement process, with the commissioner's fee for that settlement capped at the greater of $100 or $1 per disbursement.