My father passed away in June 2007. The day after he passed away, my two siblings and I met with a funeral director and discussed the funeral. My sister wrote a check to pay for the funeral. I did not notice that it was from my father's account until I closed that account. I believe she forged his signature on that check. What should I do?
Someone had to pay for the funeral. You had a choice to pay for it out of your father's funds or from funds provided by one or more of his family.
It's possible that your sister was a joint owner of the account on which she wrote the check. In that case, the account would be hers to use, and paying for the funeral was a generous thing for her to do. It's also possible that your sister held your father's power of attorney, or was an authorized signer on his account. If that's the case, it was technically wrong for her to write a check on the account, because her authority under the power of attorney or authorized signature agreement ended at the moment of your father's death. The check would likely have been paid, however, since the bank probably was not aware of your father's death when the check was presented for payment.
Whether or not anyone needs to do anything about your sister's actions depends on whether anyone was harmed by them. If she paid for the funeral from funds that should have been part of your father's estate, and you and your siblings were the beneficiaries of the estate, what's the difference between paying from your own funds at the time of the funeral or paying from funds that would later become yours?
Remember that people don't always do precisely the correct thing when they are under stress, and there is certainly no more stressful time than when making funeral arrangements. You really need to decide whether any lasting harm came from the way your sister handled the payment, and then decide whether the possibility of creating a rift between yourself and your siblings is what you want to do.
BankingQuestions.com is a free service made possible by the generous support of our advertisers. Advertisers are not responsible for site content. Please help us keep BankingQuestions.com FREE by supporting our advertisers. When you see an ad for a product or service you may have an interest in, click through to learn more.
Accounts
Article
Q&A
Podcast
Video
Blog
Discussions
PDF
Powerpoint
Someone had to pay for the funeral. You had a choice to pay for it out of your father's funds or from funds provided by one or more of his family.