victory

[calimac]

I have it at last: a check representing the relatively small amount of money that my late mother had in her checking account, to now be deposited in the much larger investment account where we've been putting everything else.

I kept this account open for a while as a place to deposit refund checks (insurance, memberships, etc.) made out to her name, because according to the lawyer I couldn't legally deposit them in the investment account, which is now in my name as trustee.  (Although, when I did take one small such check along with a batch of payables-to-trustee into the investment broker's office, they took it without a murmur, which astonished the lawyer when I told her.)

I went in a couple of weeks ago to Mammoth Bank's little branch office to close the account, and spent well over an hour sitting there while an extremely green behind the ears junior banker tried to figure out the notarized declaration, with an original copy of the death certificate attached, that the lawyer had prepared for me.  The look on my lawyer's face, when I later told her that this guy had spent an hour staring at it and repeatedly phoning the bank's legal department for help, was a look you don't want to see on a lawyer's face.

Eventually I gave up and told them to phone me when they had finished figuring it out.  Two days later, they did - I had to come back and sign their notarized document, which meant I had to come back when their notary was in.  This was just before I left on one of my trips, so that wasn't going to happen very soon.  It still took some time afterwards - she's out to lunch, or I can't find her; and the fact that her first name was Yetty only emphasized her elusiveness ("In the darkest Himalayas / where the snow is piled in layers / And the view is reminiscent of some snowy black spaghetti") - but eventually her existence and mine coincided, the papers were signed, and my thumbprint was taken, something I've never had a notary do to me before.

Then I had to sit in the lobby's sole lounge chair for another half hour while some dark behind-the-scenes ritual was performed with the documents, during which other bankers would come by and solicitously ask, "Are you being helped?" to which I'd reply things like, "You tell me," before aforesaid junior banker finally brought out the check.  I thanked him, and said the process had probably been even more frustrating for him than it had been for me.

Comments

[whswhs.livejournal.com]

When my mother died she only had one bank account, which contained a modest amount of savings. My sister and I went in and showed the bank that she was legally dead and that was that.

On the other hand, she had had a contract with a propane company that recharged the tank on the property. I told them she was dead and didn't need any further services, and they sent regular dunning letters for several months after that. Each time I called them they assured me they would fix it, and didn't. It only ended when I was connected with a nice woman in their accounting office, who made a data entry while I was on the phone and resolved the whole thing.

But I expect that your mother's assets were much more complicated than mine's.

I'm glad to hear the administrative part is getting cleared up. That's not as hard as the personal loss, but in some ways it's a lot more frustrating.

[kalimac.livejournal.com]

My mother's estate is of some complexity, but this account wasn't. I have a horrid suspicion that if I'd just brought in the death certificate, I could have gotten a check in my name pretty expeditiously, and it was the form that confused them.

The problem with the administrative stuff is that it just keeps going on, though diminished from 2-3 months ago. The personal loss is something I had to deal with while she was still alive, because by the time she died she was no longer usefully communicative. That's the part that hurt, and that's the aspect that I miss.

I had a problem like yours once with a change of address for a bank I then had dealings with. I went in four times with the latest statement that had gone to my old address, and they promised the next one would go to my new address - and yes, they did this while I watched. But it didn't help. Each time I was louder and more obnoxious about it than the previous time, and the fourth time it finally worked.