Family Court Act § 311.5 · Part 1. Jurisdiction and Preliminary Procedures
Amendment of the petition
Text — Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
§ 311.5. Amendment of the petition. 1. At any time before or during the fact-finding hearing, the court may, upon application of the presentment agency and with notice to the respondent and an opportunity to be heard, order the amendment of a petition with respect to defects, errors or variances from the proof relating to matters of form, time, place, names of persons and the like, when such amendment does not tend to prejudice the respondent on the merits. Upon permitting such an amendment, the court must, upon application of the respondent, order any adjournment which may be necessary to accord the respondent an adequate opportunity to prepare his defense.
2. A petition may not be amended for the purpose of curing:
(a) a failure to charge or state a crime; or
(b) legal insufficiency of the factual allegations; or
(c) a misjoinder of crimes.
Source of truth
- Edition
- Law content up to date as of August 21, 2026, as published by the New York State Senate (Open Legislation)
- Official file
- https://legislation.nysenate.gov/pdf/laws/FCT311.5
- Text hash
- sha256 1b14d5c30a5c3ffd8b4dbc862fc3ac6548de9d5128bc3e6762b49710458dd353
- Composed by
- gen_ny_statutes.py 2026-11-10: the Senate's Open Legislation law tree (GET /api/3/laws/<ID>?full=true) read in document order; the Senate's PDF of the whole law (GET /pdf/laws/<ID>?full=true), read with PDFium, prints the same words in the same order
Procedural information only. Not legal advice and not a substitute for the advice of an attorney. Confirm the current text with the official publisher before relying on it.