When a sole account holder dies, banks freeze the account until a court appoints an estate representative. Jerry Taylor explains how banks find out about deaths and recommends setting up a living trust instead, which lets your successor trustee access the money right away.
If you were to die having a bank account in your name and no one else's, the bank is going to freeze that account and nobody in your family will be able to get into it until a court issued an order appointing a representative for your estate and allowing access to that account. Banks find out about deaths in any number of ways, but the most common is that the funeral home will notify Social Security and Social Security will immediately notify any banks that come up under your Social Security number. One of the easiest ways to get around this ever happening is to create a living trust and put your bank accounts in the name of the trust. Once you've done that, on the date of your death, your successor trustee will have immediate access to those accounts.
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