Jerry Taylor explains how bank accounts freeze when the owner dies and three ways to prevent it: naming a payable-on-death beneficiary, naming a trust as that beneficiary, or titling the account directly in a trust's name. The trust approaches avoid probate court entirely.
If you have a bank account with only your name on it, when you die, that bank account will become a deceased account and it will be frozen and locked down until a probate court issues an order allowing someone access to that account. No one in your family will be able to access that account until a judge issues an order allowing it. There are several ways around this. At most banks, you can designate someone to be paid upon your death with any monies that are in that account. But if that person were to die before you do, then the money would still have to be subject to probate court orders. The lowest risk option is to create a trust and title that account in the name of the trust, which would give your estate immediate access to that money. Or you could also name the trust as the payable-on-death beneficiary of that account. There is no reason you should allow your bank accounts to be frozen after you're gone.
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