Estate less than £5,000

konark

Why did you show the bank the will? They have no right to see it . All you had to do is go with the death certificate as next of kin and they'd have let you have the 2 grand.

Why on earth has your grandad paid in advance for a funeral, these are usually settled afterwards with money from the deceased's bank account. If you'd gone to the bank with an undertaker's bill they'd have to release the money.

poppystar

konark wrote: »

Why did you show the bank the will? They have no right to see it . All you had to do is go with the death certificate as next of kin and they'd have let you have the 2 grand.

Why on earth has your grandad paid in advance for a funeral, these are usually settled afterwards with money from the deceased's bank account. If you'd gone to the bank with an undertaker's bill they'd have to release the money.

Quite possibly the bank asked to see the will. We experienced that when dealing with institutions before we had the grant of probate.

Until I joined this forum I too would not have known that banks would pay undertakers or would have thought to take the bill to them.

If this is the first death the OP has had close dealings with it is a steep learning curve, as many of us have found, and one that comes at a time a family are possibly affected by grief too.

getmore4less

konark wrote: »

Why did you show the bank the will? They have no right to see it . All you had to do is go with the death certificate as next of kin and they'd have let you have the 2 grand.

Banks should satisfy themselves as best they can the person claiming the funds is entitled.

the grant is the catch all as any holder of assets can assume that the courts have done the checks and they can release to the holder of the grant.

without the grant they may do some checks and get the person to use their indemnity form.

one of those checks could well be "is there a will", if you say yes then they know the executors are the ones entitled to claim the money on behalf of the beneficiaries and can refuse to release to anyone else.

They should not just hand over the money

Here is Barclays form
http://www.barclays.co.uk/content/dam/documents/personal/miscellaneous/Personal-indemnity-form-website11-070716.pdf

katy123

konark wrote: »

Why did you show the bank the will? They have no right to see it . All you had to do is go with the death certificate as next of kin and they'd have let you have the 2 grand.

Why on earth has your grandad paid in advance for a funeral, these are usually settled afterwards with money from the deceased's bank account. If you'd gone to the bank with an undertaker's bill they'd have to release the money.

We didn't know at first, but thanks and will remember that going forward. But, I don't think it's guaranteed to work

Jenniefour

And, unfortunately, not all those on front desks at banks know what they're supposed to be doing either. Doesn't help.