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Home >> Special Situations >>Incapacitated Individuals
Managing Account for Incapacitated Individual
My mother-in-law passed away. She had a joint checking account with her best friend, who is alive, but has Alzheimers. There is almost $3000 in the bank. How do my husband (her son and only living child) and I obtain the money out of her account?
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 Most joint accounts are opened for the owners as joint tenants with rights of survivorship (JTWROS). Assuming that the joint account you described was opened in that way, the account now belongs to your late mother-in-law's friend. Although he or she has Alzheimer's, that doesn't necessarily mean he or she is legally incapacitated, depending of course on how far the disease has progressed. If he or she is incapacitated, the account will be under the control of his or her attorney-in-fact or guardian/custodian. In short, if the joint account was set up with JTWROS, your husband has no legal right to the funds.
Your husband should contact the bank, which may or may not provide the information, to see whether the account was opened with JTWROS. If he gets a refusal, it's likely that the JTWROS provision was used, and the bank has decided it cannot provide information under privacy laws.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 8/11/10
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