The bank will freeze your accounts

17 Aug 2023 · 1 min

Watch on YouTube

1:01

In this monologue, Jerry Taylor explains that when a person dies leaving a bank account solely in their name, banks will automatically freeze the account, preventing family members from accessing funds until a court appoints an estate representative. He details how banks learn of deaths—typically through funeral homes notifying Social Security, which then alerts banks via the deceased's Social Security number. The freeze forces families to cover expenses out-of-pocket until the court order lifts the restriction. Taylor recommends creating a living trust and transferring bank accounts and other assets into the trust's name. Upon death, the designated successor trustee gains immediate access and control over the trust assets, avoiding the freeze and ensuring bills can be paid promptly.

Chapters

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. No one would be able to pay the bills that need to be paid until a court issued an order appointing a representative for your estate and allowing access to that account. So to pay your bills, people would have to come out of their own pocket until the freeze on that account was lifted by a court order. 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, and that's the person you name to be in charge of everything when you're gone, will have immediate access to those accounts. And if you put your property and other assets in the name of the trust, your successor trustee will have immediate access and control