Old Abbey National Account

goldenpaws

Hi, my mum died recently leaving me her Account Passbook with a sizeable inheritance, or so she told me. I went through the correct channels with the bank (now Santander) and they said there is no trace of the account as they only keep their records for 6 years and there had been no movement on it in that time, so it 'must have been closed'. They would be right about there being no movement, as my mum had been house bound for even longer than that. I then wrote to the Banking Ombudsman and they said the bank is correct - so the money is gone! If there was someone dishonest in that bank, it would have been easy for them (knowing my mum never used the account nor came into the branch) to steal that money hoping that after 6 years, all details would be destroyed! Surely this cannot be right.:(

eskbanker

Accounts without any activity for a number of years aren't automatically closed, with no subsequent access to the balance, they're regarded as dormant but the funds can still be reclaimed at any time, see http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/reclaim/reclaim-lost-assets-free for details of the My Lost Account service.

However, I'm assuming that Santander are saying that the account was closed (implicitly by the account holder) many years ago rather than it becoming dormant, and if the Financial Ombudsman Service has agreed with the bank's stance then the only remaining option is for you to take them to court, if you're sufficiently convinced that the account was never closed by your mum.

Abbey National became part of Santander in late 2004 - I don't know what the process was for passbook accounts branded as Abbey National but it does sound possible that an Abbey passbook is still around even if the account itself was subsequently closed.

fwor

As above, having an apparently valid passbook does not mean much. When checking through my files a while back I found a couple of Abbey Nat/ A&L/ B&B passbooks from when Santander absorbed those companies. Both appeared to be valid but in fact the accounts had been closed years ago.

Unfortunately Santander were not very rigorous about insisting on stamping the old passbooks as "Cancelled" then, so existence of the passbook alone does not actually mean that much. Really you need to find the statements for the account so you can figure out what happened to the funds.

alanq

A passbook is not proof. I have a passbook for a closed account because the book was mislaid and I had a replacement issued. Only the replacement book shows the account was closed.

Sadly some people do not destroy or mark their out of date passbooks / share certificates etc. and years later someone comes along and thinks that they have found a fortune.

On the other hand...
http://www.thisismoney.co.uk/money/saving/article-2235962/Santander-manages-lost-passbook-accounts.html

Kernel_Sanders

goldenpaws wrote: »

If there was someone dishonest in that bank, it would have been easy for them (knowing my mum never used the account nor came into the branch) to steal that money hoping that after 6 years, all details would be destroyed!

Have you considered looking closer to home for who might be responsible?