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No Will, No Estate, No Deposit
I'm on a joint account with my dad who passed away this Spring. Since he passed, we've received his refunds from the IRS plus health and auto insurance. They're all payable to him, but the bank won't let me deposit them, what do I do? There is no estate or Will.
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 In most states, joint account owners hold their accounts as "joint tenants, with rights of survivorship." That's lawyer-speak for "each of the account owners owns all of what's in the account regardless of who put it there, and if one of the owners dies, the surviving owner or owners will have ownership." In practical terms, that means that when your father died, his ownership of the account ended, regardless of whether the bank's records were updated. That is why your bank correctly refused to let you deposit those checks to the account.
Could the bank have looked the other way and allowed you to deposit the checks? Sure, but what if there are other individuals with claims on that money? If your father's estate owed no money, and there were no other family members with a claim, you would have received the money, and that might be the way things should ultimately settle out, anyhow, but the bank doesn't know if someone else has rights to those funds, so it won't ignore the mismatch between the check payee (your father) and the account owner (you). Some banks, presumably those closer to their customers, would have let you make those deposits; others would have taken the harder line that your bank did.
Contact the clerk of the probate court (your state may call it something different, but it's the court that handles estates and wills) for the county in which your father last resided, to find out if there is a way to handle this type of loose end. Perhaps there are special relaxed rules for very small estates that would permit you to get a short-term administrator appointment, endorse the checks and negotiate them. That solution may not be available in your state.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 8/01/08
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