“My concern is that my sister may have placed our mother’s, grandmother’s, and great-grandmother’s wedding rings, and other family heirlooms in the safe-deposit box.” (Photo subject is a model.) – Getty Images/iStockphoto
My sister and her husband passed away within a year of each other. I’m blessed that they had the foresight to have a will and living trust that, as the successor trustee, has made dispensing the trust assets much easier.
My sister had a business safe-deposit box at her bank. The safe-deposit box is not listed as personal property and is not part of the trust. However, I could access two other safe-deposit boxes in my sister’s name with her death certificate. The bank denied me access to her business box, saying it was not part of the trust and was opened in the name of her now-defunct business. The bank suggested filing a claim for unclaimed property in the state where I reside.
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My brother-in-law also had a checking account for his medical corporation. The bank said I would be unable to access the funds with his death certificate and trust documents. The bank’s advice was the same as for my sister’s business safe-deposit box: File a claim with the state for abandoned property. Our trust attorney said the cost of attempting to access the medical-business checking account ($11,000) might not be worth it.
My concern is that my sister may have placed three generations of wedding rings, and other family heirlooms in the safe-deposit box. Would I need to file an action in probate court to access the business safe-deposit box and business checking account or wait?
If your sister died before your brother-in-law, his heirs will inherit their assets. – MarketWatch illustration
There are three complications to your dilemma.
First, access to these safe-deposit boxes may be complicated by the differing rules of each individual bank, and the fact that they may be in the name of the corporation rather than the individual. But if they are the sole owner of the box, the administrator or executor of your sister and brother-in-law’s estate would be able to access them with the right paperwork. Second, if your sister died before your brother-in-law, his heirs will inherit his assets.
Hire a trust and estate lawyer who has experience in this field. You are taking advice from an attorney who has told you they do not have expertise in this area. So if this is a treasure hunt, you’re already knowingly walking in the wrong direction. My answer is predicated on the assumption that your brother-in-law died first, but two deaths and two probate cases within a year complicate the process and may draw it out for many more months.
If you don’t have a key to your sister’s safe-deposit box, and you are not the public administrator, you will have to obtain letters from the probate court to access the box, per the advice you received. (Although $11,000 sounds like a high fee.) If you did have a key to the box, and you were the executor/administrator, you could access the safe-deposit box free of charge without any of the above documentation. That, however, is not the case here.
Nor do you have the right to access the box or claim the contents even if it contains family heirlooms “Safe-deposit boxes often have restricted access after the owner’s death,” according to the AARP. “When the person passes away, the box is typically sealed until the probate process begins. That can result in family members not having immediate access to important documents like wills, durable power of attorney, insurance policies or medical directives.”
The bank is doing its due diligence by refusing you access, and ensuring that the contents of the box are not delivered to the wrong person; once the contents have been accessed, it will be almost impossible to retrieve them. “When a consumer rents a safe-deposit box from a financial institution, the rental agreement between the parties controls the relationship,” says the R. Silverman Groupwhich is based in Walnut Creek, Calif.
“California law provides that on the death of the box owner, the institution at which the box is located may deliver the contents to certain defined people (including, but not limited to, a ‘relative) if a) the institution has no reason to believe there is a dispute over the contents, b) the person to whom the contents are delivered provides reasonable proof of identity, and c) reasonable records are kept in accordance with related rules,” the law firm says.
Including a box in a revocable living trust would have helped avoid these problems. “If your living trust is the box owner, your named successor trustee will only have access to and control over the box when necessary and authorized by you,” R. Silverman adds. “The successor trustee has a fiduciary duty to preserve, protect and distribute your property in accordance with your wishes, as set forth in the trust.” But that was not the case with these boxes.
The Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. advises consumers not to confuse safe-deposit boxes with deposit accounts. The former is a storage space provided by the bank, “so the contents, including cash, checks or other valuables, are not insured by FDIC deposit insurance if damaged or stolen,” the FDIC says. “Also, financial institutions generally do not insure the contents of safe-deposit boxes.” Plus, they can be difficult to access if the owner dies.
Safe-deposit boxes are best used to store important documents rather than items like your grandmother’s diamond ring — and you should put cash in a checking or savings account where up to $250,000 per account is covered by FDIC insurance. Good candidates for a box “include originals of key documents, such as birth certificates, property deeds, car titles and U.S. savings bonds that haven’t been converted into electronic securities,” the FDIC says.
This problem should be solved by the executor of the estate.
