Wills, beneficiaries, and unregistered accounts

[destillat]

I am hoping to get a bit of advice from the financial / legal geniuses here!

My partner and I recently arranged our wills and POAs.
Our situation is very simple and straightforward.
All of our deeds are in both our names.
Most of our assets are in registered accounts that are left to each other via beneficiary.

The one (relatively minor, but not insignificant) question mark is our daily chequing accounts.
I have my own account. She has her own account. We do not have a joint account.
I have no desire to add her to my chequing account. She has no desire to add me to me her chequing account. We have no desire to set up a joint account.
We are both totally fine with this arrangement. It works for us.

Buuuttt... if one of us dies unexpectedly, the funds in that respective account will go into probate, and is a pain to get out.
On any given day myself or her will have between 5 and 10k in our personal account. So not a huge amount, but nothing to be sneezed at either.

Our lawyer didn't really have any suggestion other than "add each other"... which we do not want to do.

So I am floating an idea.
In our will box, we each include a personal envelope.
This will include our bank card number and our password.
In the event of one of our deaths, the other cracks open the will box, opens the personal envelope, then has access to the account.

Funds can then be transferred out before the bank is notified of the death.
Here is were I have questions.
I can see the bank being a bitch about this.
But as far as I am concerned, if I give someone my access information, they have legal access to do what they want with that information.
After all, banks will give you the 'fuck you' if you are a victim of fraud... and this isn't even close to fraud.

So, I am wondering what you financial and legal experts think about this?

If you are still reading, sorry for the long message! But I like to put all the details on the table to try to avoid lengthy back and forth.

Thanks for your thoughts!

 

[bazokajoe]

Should listen to your lawyer.

 

[destillat]

Should listen to your lawyer.

Why?

 

[einar]

Your concept is bizarre and I believe illegal. Why get into such nonsense? When someone dies, his or her assets are frozen immediately, and the bank has a fraud department that may well come calling. Or in your parlance, "Being a bitch about this."
You already have two worthy simple choices: add each other's names to your two chequing accounts to make them joint accounts, or simply accept the concept of probate, and delay receipt of this money by a few months. If it were me, I'd do the former.

Relatedly, what is a will box? Do you mean a cigar box under your bed, in which you store your will? Or a safety deposit box at a bank? If the latter, make sure your partner's name is listed as having access to the safety deposit box. A box rental in two names, in other words.

 

[onomatopoeia]

You could each designate the other as beneficiary of the personal chequing accounts in your respective Wills. The lawyer should have suggested that.

Alternatively, write each other a cheque for the assets in your person chequing accounts, and put the in the safety deposit box. Repeat the procedure every six months or so, when the current cheque becomes stale dated. If your wife becomes old and feeble minded, cash her cheque and flee to a country with no extradition treaty with Canada, and spend it all on cheap young local pussy.

 

[bazokajoe]

Why?

See post #4.
You really need to explain your resistance to putting each others name on your back accounts.
Why make things difficult?

 

[xix]

IF you spouse dies at home you have chance to run to the bank and with drawl a certain amount of money 1K. Unless the account is set to a limit even then the machine will only give a max of 3K, which will arose suspicion.
Then you are in trouble.

Once ambulance arrives they start contacting police ( death suspicious?) then they contact Hospital. Hospital then sends out a RED ALERT to all money/Gov't agencies to freeze all her accounts. Before the body gets to the hospital.

Do you think this country is free?

DO post 4 or 5.

 

[LTO_3]

Most definitely post #4!!
If you do the "will box" idea, then as they say in Monopoly: Go to jail, go directly to jail, do not pass GO, do not collect $200!

LTO_3

 

[DiscreetRocker]

If your will clearly states that all money in your Chequing account goes to your partner, that should be clear and final.

But talk to your bank about that plan and get their response in writing. So when one partner dies and shows up with the will, the death certificate, and the bank's own policy on dead partners, you're in the clear.

Since you used "partner" and not "spouse" make that clear in the message to your bank, as well.

 

[farquhar]

If your will clearly states that all money in your Chequing account goes to your partner, that should be clear and final.

But talk to your bank about that plan and get their response in writing. So when one partner dies and shows up with the will, the death certificate, and the bank's own policy on dead partners, you're in the clear.

Since you used "partner" and not "spouse" make that clear in the message to your bank, as well.

Clearly OP wants to avoid Probate; getting a written response from the Branch is useless. The people at the Branch are not trained in Estates; they have Internal Specialists for these matters.

If OP shows up with the Death Certificate and the Will, the Branch will pay out Funeral Expenses from the Bank Account of the Deceased with an Invoice from the Funeral home. The Branch will make a Bank Draft payable to the Funeral Home without needing Letters of Probate. Funeral expenses probably would be $10K at least.

The Branch would also pay bills of the deceased; this may require opening a separate Estate Account.

The Bank wants Letters of Probate before releasing anything else in order to cover their asses, particularly if multiple people show up with Wills claiming to be the Executor of the Estate.

Would the Bank waive the requirement of Probate for an amount between $5,000 and $10,000? Possibly. This would be done as an Exception.

As for the plan to just share Bank Cards and Passwords with each other?

Well, in the Banks Terms of Service they do state they are not liable if they act on instructions without knowing that the Customer is deceased; and if the Customer chooses to share Debit Card PINs or Online Banking Passwords with someone who is not a Signature on the Account, that actually isn't Fraud as far as the Bank is concerned; the Customer is in effect Authorizing those transactions.

That being said, if the Bank finds out the Customer died after the fact and wants to make a big deal of it, they could - so I wouldn't necessarily endorse this course of action.

 

[K Douglas]

Probate fees only apply to Estates with more than $50K in assets. Since your chequing accounts fall under that threshold, there's no cause for concern. Your lawyer should have known that.

 

[bazokajoe]

Probate fees only apply to Estates with more than $50K in assets. Since your chequing accounts fall under that threshold, there's no cause for concern. Your lawyer should have known that.

My understanding of probate is everything is included. That means all assets, bank accounts, investments, house. You can't pick and choose.

 

[K Douglas]

My understanding of probate is everything is included. That means all assets, bank accounts, investments, house. You can't pick and choose.

Not if the assets ae held jointly with a spouse.

 

[bazokajoe]

Not if the assets ae held jointly with a spouse.

But are they?
He never mentioned if house, investments or any other assets were jointly held.
OK, nevermind. Went back and reread the OP's post.

 

[John_Jacob]

Funds can then be transferred out before the bank is notified of the death.
Here is were I have questions.
I can see the bank being a bitch about this.
But as far as I am concerned, if I give someone my access information, they have legal access to do what they want with that information.
After all, banks will give you the 'fuck you' if you are a victim of fraud... and this isn't even close to fraud.

Ya....if you argue that it's not fraud, you likely know it is. There is a reason why your lawyer didn't suggest this.

 

[Frankfooter]

I am hoping to get a bit of advice from the financial / legal geniuses here!

My partner and I recently arranged our wills and POAs.
Our situation is very simple and straightforward.
All of our deeds are in both our names.
Most of our assets are in registered accounts that are left to each other via beneficiary.

The one (relatively minor, but not insignificant) question mark is our daily chequing accounts.
I have my own account. She has her own account. We do not have a joint account.
I have no desire to add her to my chequing account. She has no desire to add me to me her chequing account. We have no desire to set up a joint account.
We are both totally fine with this arrangement. It works for us.

Buuuttt... if one of us dies unexpectedly, the funds in that respective account will go into probate, and is a pain to get out.
On any given day myself or her will have between 5 and 10k in our personal account. So not a huge amount, but nothing to be sneezed at either.

Our lawyer didn't really have any suggestion other than "add each other"... which we do not want to do.

So I am floating an idea.
In our will box, we each include a personal envelope.
This will include our bank card number and our password.
In the event of one of our deaths, the other cracks open the will box, opens the personal envelope, then has access to the account.

Funds can then be transferred out before the bank is notified of the death.
Here is were I have questions.
I can see the bank being a bitch about this.
But as far as I am concerned, if I give someone my access information, they have legal access to do what they want with that information.
After all, banks will give you the 'fuck you' if you are a victim of fraud... and this isn't even close to fraud.

So, I am wondering what you financial and legal experts think about this?

If you are still reading, sorry for the long message! But I like to put all the details on the table to try to avoid lengthy back and forth.

Thanks for your thoughts!

Do a combo solution.

Register each other on both personal accounts but put the account info and passwords in a box to be opened for a death.
Then its legal and still seperate.

 

[destillat]

Probate fees only apply to Estates with more than $50K in assets. Since your chequing accounts fall under that threshold, there's no cause for concern. Your lawyer should have known that.

Thank you for this.
Forgive my ignorance... is probate a difficult process?
Not that it is a huge deal... if one of us dies, the other won't be in dire need of the contents of the frozen account.
We just want to have some kind of a plan put in place... that's all.

 

[destillat]

Do a combo solution.

Register each other on both personal accounts but put the account info and passwords in a box to be opened for a death.
Then its legal and still seperate.

What do you mean?
OK, the main reason we don't want to add each other is because I don't want to see her daily banking info every time I log in, and she doesn't want to see mine every time she logs in.
Can we add each other, without giving online access to each other?
That way, if one dies, we can walk into a branch and sort things out.
Tellers, and even branch managers seem inept when it comes to death.

 

[Carvher]

5 or 10k is nothing.
If it's working for you, keep things the way they are. As a member of this board, I'm guessing it's a good idea for her to have no possible access to your account

 

[farquhar]

Can we add each other, without giving online access to each other?

Tellers, and even branch managers seem inept when it comes to death.

No; you can't do that. I've worked for two of the Banks; If you are Joint on the Account with Anyone to Sign, you can see everything and do anything.

As I said, the Branch staff have no clue. They are just Salespeople. They have to call an Estate Department who actually knows what the hell they are doing.