I need advice. My dad has kidney disease and he is in his final stages. I hate to even think about him passing but the truth is it's going to happen and I just want to be prepared. He has enough money in the bank to cover a funeral and burial and a few years back he had the bank draw up some type of form saying that after he passes away his daughter (me) can have access to his account. But recently a few people have warned me that I must get power of attorney or else it could take up to 6 months or longer after he passes to get the money. That really worries me because I simply do not have the money to pay for any of it if he were to pass. I already live paycheck to paycheck. Help!!
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If the bank is like Chase, Bank of America, they won’t deal with you unless you have a dpoa and a dpoa that meets their standards..... like with original notary seal, witnesses, done by law firm in recent past and is not a “springing DPOA”. BoA is a beast to deal with.
But if its its a local community bank and your local, with local address on your state DL & your SS card AND can pull yourself together to look to look nice & presentable here’s my suggestion..... you go to dads bank and make it the branch where dad opened the account AND you speak with a bank officer (not a teller but bank officer) as you are opening your very own checking account and if you can swing it have a check from your old bank for whatever is the minimum deposit for free checking (these tend to be like $1500); in the process of opening your account say you need to do this as dad told you that your POD on his accounts and you want to have it all set up so the $$ can segueway from his account (at this point you hand over bank statements) to your new account as you know there’s going to be all sorts of bills and “oh my goodness I had no idea floral arrangements were so pricey” and “I’ve hear it can take months for Social Security to do a clawback of that last mo paid to dad” type of conversation. What will likely happen if this is a better bank officer is...... he will look up dads account and see just what’s what, cause if it’s really POD, then he can take your info and have you just added onto dads account so it’s at-the-ready to switch over to your name & SS# when bank gets the death notice from SSA. He may say for you to just hold off on the $1500check you were gonna deposit cause dad has enough $$ sitting in the account to get started with estate stuff you don’t need the $ just yet. What you are doing is getting bank officer to do things based on his experience.
My my mom had me a POD and I was a signatory on her acct and my name on the checks after hers. But she was the owner, it was solely tied to her SS#. Mom was in a NH & on hospice and a few weeks before she died, she had a bad TIA & it looked super bleak. So anyways I went to the bank to see about my opening an estate account as I was going to be executor, yada yada. I wanted to be proactive, got old bank statements organized and did full makeup, nice clothes, better jewelry & not overdone. The bank officer looked at her account and said basically “oh no need to, I’ll just update all your info right now (DL, SS # & I luckily had my passport) and then when she dies, you just continue to use the checks and make it the account used for anything probate, it’s done all the time. But remember that SSA will pull that last check unless she lives the full month for which it’s paid so keep $ in for that...” It was all about he wanted to share his insight and knowledge to me a hapless female. And it worked seamlessly when my mom finally, finally died - she was on hospice 18 months - I still use the checking account with the old checks and use for probate expenses. Its its a local, smaller community type of bank, this way might work.
Good luck!
Btw passport is good as bank did a new W9 & an I-9 for their files. On the I-9 if you have your passport makes the verification super simple.
you may want to ask him if he has any other hidden policies, like life insurance. my dad had a small income from his electrical union, they even paid out a death benefit to (beneficiary) my mom. none of these things were told to me, just things I figured out once he passed.
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It sounds like your dad has set you up as POD, payable upon death. I would check with his bank about this.
Power of atty will not do you any good once he dies.
If you are POD on your dad's accounts then that money will go directly to you and will not need to be probated by the executor.
My mother set up all her money that way to go directly to me upon her death.