Moreover, as trustees of the tenants' security deposits, plaintiffs also have standing to assert defendants' violation of General Obligations Law § 7-105. By statute, tenants' security deposits are trust funds. General Obligations Law § 7-103 (1) provides:
"Whenever money shall be deposited or advanced on a contract or license agreement for the use or rental of real property as security for performance of the contract or agreement or to be applied to payments upon such contract . . . , such money, with interest accruing thereon, if any, until repaid or so applied, shall continue to be the money of the person making such deposit or advance and shall be held in trust by the person with whom such deposit or advance shall be made and shall not be mingled with the personal moneys or become an asset of the person receiving the same, but may be disposed of as provided in section 7-105 of this chapter."
This trust provision operates to protect the tenant against the landlord's misappropriation of the funds deposited (In re Pal-Playwell, Inc., 334 F2d 389, 391 [2d Cir 1964] [applying Real Property Law § 233]). These security funds remain the property of the tenants who deposited them (Glass v Janbach Props., 73 AD2d at 108). Without question, the tenants themselves have standing to sue for a violation of General Obligations Law § 7-105 (see Mogol v Kramer, 98 Misc 2d 1023 [1979]; LeRoy v Sayers, 217 AD2d 63 [1995]). That being so, plaintiffs, as statutory trustees of their tenants' security deposits, have standing to sue on behalf of the tenant beneficiaries (see e.g. Globe Indem. Co. v Atlantic Lighterage Corp., 244 App Div 97 [1935], affd 271 NY 234 [1936]).