Natwest Bereavement online service timescale

shiraz99

Anyone recently used Natwest's online bereavement service to close and transfer a deceased's bank accounts, if so I was wondering how long does it usually take to transfer the account once you've given them all the information required and signed the Release of Funds agreement?

I signed mine over a month ago but not heard anything.

SiliconChip

Do you already have probate, or did they confirm before submitting the request that probate is not required? If so I would have thought the closure and transfer should only take a few days, a month is unnecessarily long. I'd call them and ask for an update.

warfield

For a NatWest current account from notification of bereavement the account as locked within 1 day and to paying out to my personal account as executor took 5 days. I only needed to upload a scan of the Copy of Death Certificate. The website initially indicated that I would need to upload a Grant of Probate which was going to take months but a few days after uploading the death certificate which also has my name on it as the informant I unexpectedly received a notification that the funds could be released. This was for an account with a balance of under £10K.

Having the deceased funds paid out was useful for settling accounts and things but it also meant that there was no account for any credits or refunds to be paid into.

Once the account is closed there is no online access and no access to historical statements so ensure that you have everything you need because you may need to go into the account in some depth for probate purposes.

I did call the NatWest bereavement telephone line a couple of times and the calls were answered promptly and the service was excellent.

JGB1955

Barclays took less than 2 weeks, and that was during lockdown in June 2020.  A month seems far too long.

Dave_5150

Mine took two weeks from the death to having the money in my account even with Xmas / New Year in the middle with Halifax

DJGill

just under 2 weeks from Barclays after lodging Grant of Probate

shiraz99

I might have to give them a ring then. I confirmed with them previously that no grant of probate was required, even though I am actually going through the probate process anyway. There's no real rush, I just wanted to check whether there may be an issue or not.

SevenOfNine

In 2020 Nat West proved to be the worst, most inefficient bank I've ever had to deal with.  Even after I uploaded the death cert they were incapable of even freezing the account, which resulted in a DWP overpayment.

Went to the bank who insisted it must all be done on-line, but at that time the on-line process wasn't fit for purpose.

In the end I did a formal complaint, paid for everything with my own money until I had probate & could just withdraw her £20k & close the a/c.  NatWest paid me compensation & it sounds like their process still isn't fit for purpose!

shiraz99

I had a webchat with Natwest the other day and they said they had all the documents they needed so he'd raise an urgent case and it should be resolved in 3-5 days. At the same I found I could no longer login to the portal and was just getting an odd Error message, regardless of which browser I used.

Roll on to today I get an email from NW asking for more documentation, I managed to login and it now wants proof of ID and proof of address, even though at the point of signing up to the service it was stated that this wasn't required for existing NW account holders because you proved your identity by longing into your account during registration. You couldn't make it up.

PanSYRINX

I as my mum’s executor so needed to gather in her assets for distribution, this was relatively straightforward when dealing with other banks, pension providers, HMRC etc but then there was NatWest Bereavement Services. Despite the fact they knew I had had power of attorney for ten years, and  even had been issued a debit card for mum’s account NatWest seemed to doubt that I was the executor despite my signed declaration that I was. Several phone calls  produced no response, the agent not seemingly being able to check for the reason for the delay. Eventually I got a letter asking me to confirm my father was dead, mum’s will  stated he was executor and me the replacement on his death. My dad had died ten years earlier and all other institutions in receipt of a copy of the will accepted that I was the executor without questioning my declaration. I had to resolve this by sending a copy of my dad’s death cerificate and only then the money was released. Pathetic service at a difficult time.