Banking Protocol for Estate Administration - Lloyds TSB

trulys

Sadly, my father passed away in April this year. My two sisters and I were appointed as joint executors under his will. I have been dealt with all of the paperwork relating to his financial affairs, simply because I worked in a solicitors' office after leaving school many years ago, and I'm more au fait with this kind of thing than them!

However, I am getting more and more frustrated with the way things are handled by Lloyds TSB with regard to his accounts. When he died, one of our first ports of call was to the bank to close all his accounts, and open an executors account for the purposes of dealing with his estate. This all happened at the end of April/beginning of May, and we provided the bank with a copy of the death certificate and his Will immediately. The three of us were named as executors on the bank form for the executors' account and we all provided ID as required. This executor account form was subsequently returned to us stating that we hadn't filled out the account details on the form - how could we fill the account details out when we were trying to open the account? I had to go into the bank with the form, and they opened the account while I waited and said they would return the form to the Bereavements Team for me.

In order for me to apply for Probate, I obviously needed to work out the value of his estate and so asked Lloyds for statements showing the closing balances so that I could do this. The bank told me that they couldn't give me this information until I had been granted probate! Kind of difficult without the correct information!! Fortunately, it turned out they had issued statements anyway, but again had sent these to my sister, despite having been asked to address all correspondence to me.

Another form I needed to complete was the form R27 for tax purposes. All pension companies, etc. automatically wrote to me with statements of interest paid between the date of death and the end of the tax year. Lloyds never sent this information, so I wrote to their Estates Department requesting this. As I received no reply to this letter, I called them to find out when they might respond, and they claimed never to have received my letter. I therefore emailed a copy over to them and eventually I received the necessary tax information. Why don't the bank just provide this as a matter of course like pension companies do?

I obtained Grant of Probate on 17 July, my sisters both have power reserved as there's really no need for them to apply for Probate also. I immediately provided a copy of the Grant of Probate to the bank. In September I called into the bank to find out when we might hear something from the bank. On checking the computer, it appeared that the Estates Department had never received the copy Grant of Probate, despite it definitely having been sent to them, so a further copy was taken and sent off.

19 September my sister received a letter from the Estates Department stating that the accounts had been closed and all balances transferred to the Executors' Account.

28 September I paid a cheque into the Executor's Account, but was advised that there was a hold on this account. As it was 5 mins to closing on a Friday night, I returned to the Bank on Monday to find out what was happening. Apparently the reason for the hold was that the Estates Team had only received a fax copy of our original Executor Account form, and they required the original to be posted to them. This was sent as requested by the lady at the bank.

9 October I received a call from the lady at the local branch stating that the Estates Team had requested that a new Executor Account form be completed in my name only as I am the only one who has been granted Probate (even though my sisters are noted as having power reserved on the Grant of Probate). The local bank suggested that the Estates Team simply cross out the other two executors, but they wouldn't do this. I therefore called into the bank that day and signed the necessary form.

Its now the 21st October and I have still heard nothing from the bank.

I obtained Grant of Probate on 17th July and its now 21st October - the bank have been so slow I am fed up with going in and chasing things up. To me, their handling of this matter has been totally unacceptable.

I see from searching the internet that the banks have entered into this new "Banking Protocol for Estate Administration" when dealing with solicitors and legal representatives. Do the bank have any such Protocols for dealing with personal representatives because in my mind, they totally fail if they do!!

Wonder if anyone has any views on this?

Tuesday_Tenor

Had mixed experience with Lloyds. Seems to be that too many staff don't understand the processes and procedures. When they do, all is fine. [And sometimes the processes seem to be written down incorrectly].

When Mum (who banked with them) died in 2008 we set up an Executors account with them, were well-supported at that local branch by a particular member of staff, never had to deal with their actual Bereavement Service and all went smoothly.

At least Lloyds offer Executor Accounts ....! When Dad died in 2011 we tried to set up an Executors Account with Halifax, where he had his current and main savings accounts. 'Sorry, we stopped offering Executors Accounts 6 months ago ....'. Ehhhh??? 'Too many fraud problems with them.' Ehhh?? [Methinks perhaps you need to tighten up procedures but to withdraw the option altogether is a bit drastic ....] What are Executors supposed to do then? They said his (now closed) current account could serve as the account to receive all the monies for the estate. They couldn't get their heads round the fact that eventually, once probate was granted, we, as executors, would need an account from which we would have to pay out e.g. utility bills etc. until the house was sold. So we gave up on Halifax.

Approached Lloyds where sister (other exec) had accounts and where we still had Executor's account for Mum's estate. The reason we still had the account (with 6p in it) was is because we'd deliberately left it open for 6 months after finishing the estate 'just in case', and then several attempts to close it, writing to both branch and Bereavement Services at different points, had failed to get any response. This should perhaps have been a warning that things had gone downhill at Lloyds.

I spoke to Lloyds Bereavement service on the phone about setting up Exec account even thoug Dad hadn't banked with them. No problem. they said, just make appointment at local branch and take in paperwork (death cert, will, own id). So we did exactly that, sister travelling long distance for the appointment. Waste of time and money ...as ... Local branch said we couldn't set up Executors Account UNTIL we had Grant of Probate. We explained we had done this, at same branch, when Executors previously; and we understood we couldn't actually USE account until grant of probate, only receive monies into it ... but no... they refused. The manager was called, and showed us the written procedure, which did actually expect them to check grant of probate at this stage .... Weird .... We probably should have demanded they contact their own bereavement services at this point but by this time we'd wasted a whole afternoon and were pretty fed up.

The following week, sister went into her own branch of Lloyds, spoke to a member of staff who knew what she was doing, was horrified that the original branch had been so inept, and promptly set up the Exec account, with forms sent to me for signing. No subsequent problems were encountered.

So, I'm sorry you've had so much hassle at such a difficult time, but am not totally surprised. As someone commented recently on one of these threads, sometimes you get the impression that some of these financial institutions have never dealt with a death before .... It's very peculiar as it must be an almost daily occurrence...

There is a serious (lack of) training issue here. Not sure whether Lloyds are worse than others.

trulys

Well, I'm not surprised I'm not the only one with problems with them! Complete nightmare.

This morning I popped into the bank to see what's happening, and as I walked in the lady at the counter said "Ah, its back!" (meaning the form, not me ).

The form which I was asked to sign 2 weeks ago had today been received back at the local branch because we hadn't written "me" in two boxes (the bank staff filled the form out, not me - I just signed it). So she'd written "me" in the highlighted boxes and was going to return it to their estates department. I told her not to bother, I was going to go to my bank, Nat West, and ask them if they could open an executor account for me, and if so, could the monies being held prisoner by Lloyds be transferred to that account. Yes, so long as its an executors' account I was advised.

So I went to Nat West and I have an appointment there tomorrow morning. I will need to take the Death Certificate, copy Will, Grant of Probate, letters from my two sisters renouncing their role as executors. An account will apparently be opened up whilst I am there, in my name, and the next day it will be renamed to "The Executors of....". Once opened the money can be transferred from Lloyds (if they will send it!), and we will receive a chequebook.

I only wish I'd gone to Nat West long ago, but every time a problem has arisen with Lloyds, we've been assured that this is the last thing they will need - well its the last time they'll be getting anything from me anyway.