Natwest bereavement services

Chuck71

Am I the only one to have to suffer dealing with Natwest after a bereavement?


My wife and I were living overseas, and Natwest for no particular reason they were prepared to divulge, decided to close her account, after she'd been a customer for around 25 years.


I asked them not to, as it was the only bank account she had, and I was putting money into it for cancer treatment. They ignored that and closed her account. They sent a letter saying she could either speak to them or get various bits of documentation for them to transfer to another account the balance, when she could barely walk or talk.



With nothing from my wife, they sent her a cheque she couldn't cash as her only £sterling account was the Natwest one and now closed.


We then moved back to Ireland, I have no idea where the cheque went, it went into our 20' container and I don't know where in our house it is, if it came out.



My wife's condition got worse, and she then died of the cancer.


I wrote to Natwest about this, and just got a matter of fact confirmation the account was closed.


I then rang up, was told there was no reference to the letter I had been sent, but I had to write again to Natwest. They refused to tell me what I had to do to get back the funds that were put into a dormant account, refused to send me any forms or anything else, I had to write to them. No email address I could send them anything on either, and they refused to email me. Very helpful!


So I wrote to them again, included copies of everything I thought would be needed, and a request for a cheque to be drawn in my name, as her surviving husband. I'm named as the notifier on the death certificate, which makes clear I'm not just anybody.


Again, I got back a simple letter that ignored everything I said, and confirmed the account was closed.


I've then had another lengthy phone call, where it was basically acknowledged they had ignored my letter, but I was now told a cheque would be issued.


Two weeks later, no cheque, I've complained again, and now I've been told I need to get a Grant of Probate!


So far I've printed out form PA1A Probate application (18 pages), form IHT207 (2 pages), IHT 400 (16 pages) and IHT 406 (2 pages). No idea how many more forms I need to print. My printer is running out of ink, and I'll need a bigger envelope!



I have to send that off, pay the grant of probate fee of £1.50, get the grant, so I can then send off the form Natwest have emailed so I can then hopefully get money back.


For all this hassle, it is less than £500, and Natwest in all the correspondence are yet to acknowledge even the amount to be refunded, when every form that I am now being directed to fill out demands I put in a figure!


I'm racking up complaints that seemingly are being ignored as I'm getting little to no feedback, the only feedback so far has been through Twitter where a complaint number was finally generated.


Is dealing with Natwest supposed to be so complicated and time consuming and so soaking of your energy, that in the end we give up and the bank keeps the money?


The whole Natwest approach from my own experience of dealing with them (they also closed my account for no reason!), is don't deal with the complaint, force the customer to keep complaining, then say if they don't like it they can go to the ombudsman, knowing many will simply give up.


Natwest bereavement services certainly seem to have no idea what they are doing at all, the level of additional stress that could be done without, that they are supposed to be there to prevent, is instead now seeming the opposite.

Chuck71

Natwest:



"Once a complaint is raised any impacts from what has happened are assessed and fully investigated to put things right and provide a resolution."


Natwest, if Big Brother and IngSoc ever took over they could run the Ministry of Truth

-taff

Make a complaint to the CEO.

Flugelhorn

I wonder if the reason they closed the account was because it was clear you weren't a UK resident?

I had no problem getting relatives money from them with just a death cert

74jax

When you were dealing with Nat West on behalf of your wife, did you have a registered PoA with them? I completely appreciate the circumstances however if they kept saying they needed to speak to your wife or appears they didn't have it registered?

Registering a death, doesn't show you are 'anybody' or even that you are entitled to any funds.

I'm really sorry you are going through this, but I think your feelings are hightened due to the circumstances you sadly find yourself in.

It isn't simply a case of getting funds from an account, it is getting funds from a closed account when a cheque has already been sent but not cashed. I think this would be a tricky situation without a death involved.

Keep_pedalling

You should not need any of those forms, Nat West upper limit for paying without probate is £25,000. In addition to that it seems she was not resident in the UK at the time of death (unless by Ireland you mean NI rather than the RoI) so UK probate is not applicable.

74jax

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

You should not need any of those forms, Nat West upper limit for paying without probate is £25,000. In addition to that it seems she was not resident in the UK at the time of death (unless by Ireland you mean NI rather than the RoI) so UK probate is not applicable.

It was a closed account with all funds withdrawn so not as straightforward. I can see Natwest's point of view. It was an old account, they had released the funds. The issue is the owner of the account did not cash the cheque. So its trying to get that cheque raised again from an old account.

TonyMMM

Nat West and other banks may choose to release funds without probate up to whatever limit they decide, but they do that at some risk and don't have to and are quite within their rights to insist upon probate for any sum.

If the funds are held by the UK bank, then probate may be the only way to get access.

Chuck71

Update.

After 4 months of asking, and asking, and asking, Nattwest have finally told me what the amount that was put into the dormant account is, so I can finally get the Grant of Probate that they were demanding I have to get!

They have also told me, helpfully, it is to 'protect the customer', and they think dismissing almost all of a complaint I made (ignoring just about every part) 'was fair'.

Really I would never want to deal with them ever again, it will take a lot more than a rebranding to save the sinking ship that is RBS.