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Safe Deposit Box Troubles

My sister's name was on my mother's safe deposit box as a joint account. However she was denied entry to the safe deposit box.

Shortly thereafter my brother got access to the box after telling a judge that my sister and I didn’t mind. The judge signed an order allowing him access to the box without signatures from my sister and I.

Is the bank guilty of negligence for not allowing my sister access to the safety deposit box despite her being a joint holder? There are things missing from the box. Who has to prove the contents of the box?


Your questions are certainly troubling, and you deserve some answers, but we don't have the facts needed to decide who might be at fault here (except, apparently, for your brother). There may be some situations in which the bank's refusal to admit your sister would be reasonable. For example, if your sister had not signed the safe deposit box contract when the box was first rented, the bank might have been correct to refuse her access. You haven't said whether your mother is alive, or was still alive when your sister attempted to access the box. There is the possibility that the box contract included your sister as a deputy, rather than a full joint lessee of the box, and, if your mother was no longer alive, that deputy appointment would have lapsed.

It appears that your problem is with your brother and his actions, rather than with what the bank did or didn't do. If you believe that he lied in court to get the judge's order allowing him access, you need to take that matter up with him and the court, not with the bank.

As for "proving" the contents of the box, that is one of the classic "he said ... she said" arguments. The bank has no responsibility for knowing the box's contents (indeed, banks are not supposed to know such things), so again it will come down to sorting things out between your siblings and yourself.



Published on BankingQuestions.com 6/19/07