Who to threaten bank with for complaint

jonny2510

I won't bore you with all the details, but basically my mum wrote to the bank (around 7 months ago) to request my (deceased) father's accounts be closed, and the money forwarded on to her (along with the original death certificate she sent with the request).

The bank closed a few of the accounts, but not the account with most of the savings (nor did they return the death certificate).

She wrote again three months ago, asking to close the account, and again for the death certificate to be returned.

To date she still hasn't received anything back.

I'm really annoyed they haven't sorted this, and am about to write a monster of a letter for her, to send to the bank, and wanted to end with something along the lines of:

I expect to hear a response within 7 (or maybe 14 days), otherwise I will get in touch with xxx to make a complaint.

What I want to know is, who should the xxx be?

Lokolo

You can complain to the bank and you must give them 8 weeks to respond.

If the case is not sorted within that time you can then complain to the Banking Obumdedfdfsdfsd people, someone will come along with more details.

RayWolfe

You need Probate in order to close the bank account of the deceased although some banks operate on a de minimis basis.

simon_templar_2

AFAIK you need Grant of Probate if the value of the accounts is over £25k. Normally the person acting as the legal rep would need to take ID to the bank and there would be various legal docs to sign and also the Stat Dec to be signed and probably witnessed by a JoP or solicitor.

juicyjude

And gaining probate can be a lenthy business as I well know. It took 5 months for me to be granted this

jonny2510

Thanks for the replies. I never thought of the banks own complaints procedure (doh!).

With regards to the Grant of Probate, it's less than 25K, though if the problem is because of the probate, you think they'd have got in touch to request it.

dunstonh

though if the problem is because of the probate, you think they'd have got in touch to request it.

They may not know who to contact.

jonny2510

dunstonh wrote: »

They may not know who to contact.

Surely the return address from the letters my mum sent would be a bit of a clue?

dunstonh

Surely the return address from the letters my mum sent would be a bit of a clue?

If she was the executor and they know she was the executor then yes. If not, they cannot discuss it with her.

Mikeyorks

The figures of £25k etc for Banks to deal with this 'informally' and outside of Probate are misleading. For example this is the Halifax take on it :-

We will need to see a Grant of Probate, Grant of Letters of Administration or Certificate of Confirmation (in Scotland) in order to close accounts, plans or share holdings, if:
– you are obtaining probate/Confirmation for other financial organisations, or
– there is a total balance of more than £20,000 held in one or more of the following Halifax and Bank of Scotland account types:

- in other words, if you are obtaining Probate then you need to provide that evidence to Halifax even if the deceased had only a small sum lodged in their name. I have found the same with A&L. Also that even the odd few £hundred in life Insurance policies .... Probate is required in a lot of cases from companies who would, anecdotally, have dealt with this informally just a few years ago.

though if the problem is because of the probate, you think they'd have got in touch to request it.

.... would agree with you. But if you're dealing with a Bank without a dedicated Bereavement Centre .... anything is possible. The theory that such cases are dealt with sensitively and competently outside of a centralised team ..... is just theory.

jonny2510

Well thank you for the information.

It's just so frustrating (although that's what's come to be expected when dealing with banks now )