Trouble Reclaiming Charity's Bank Account

Halobump

Got an interesting one. Reclaimed a dormant CIO with the help of the Charities Commission using their s80 powers from the Charities Act, as all the original Trustees had unfortunately died, to bring it back online.

One of our actions has been to try to regain access with the Charities account, held by NatWest. They are refusing to update the signatories following their process, as the account has been, according to their explanation, set up as an individual account and can only be accessed by the deceased next of kin.

Considering the name of the account is "Charity Name" and the transactions on there to be linked to the Charity's Building, I find this should be a common sense thing to work through. This of course means the Charity is going to be heavily affected by this.

Does anyone kindly have any advice to share on actions?

retiredbanker1

The name does not matter - if it has been set up as a personal account then a personal account it is.

Contact the next of kin and hope that the monies have not already been distributed.

penners324

A charity should always have a community or charity account which is a type business account.

Set up a new account with a bank that offers this type of account.

Then the deceased next of kin will have to transfer the funds in the account to the new account.

There may well be inheritance tax issues for them to consider as well as this account will form part of their estate