What happens to my bank account savings if I die?

RedImp_2

It’s an interesting point about accounts where there is no paper trail.  When I was executor for my Fathers will I had no idea beforehand what he had but there were statements on file etc which I could use.  Would be much harder for anyone doing mine as it stands, even though I’m pretty good at keeping records in general.

Bridlington1

My estate shall likely be a pain to sort out as things stand, I've just culled a load of accounts and I'm now down to 143 current/savings accounts, this doesn't include investment accounts, the likes of Wirex, Revolut, paypal etc.

Fortunately I'm in my early 20s and in good health so have a long way to go before I kick the bucket (hopefully). Once I get older I may cut back on the accounts but I'm not in any hurry to do so.

badger09

Bridlington1 said:

My estate shall likely be a pain to sort out as things stand, I've just culled a load of accounts and I'm now down to 143 current/savings accounts, this doesn't include investment accounts, the likes of Wirex, Revolut, paypal etc.

Fortunately I'm in my early 20s and in good health so have a long way to go before I kick the bucket (hopefully). Once I get older I may cut back on the accounts but I'm not in any hurry to do so.

Wishing you a long life, but I hope you devote as much attention to recording your personal finances as you do to maintaining the various threads in this board. 
Administering the Estate of someone with 5 or 6 accounts was time consuming enough, but 140+ 😱

eskbanker

Bridlington1 said:

My estate shall likely be a pain to sort out as things stand, I've just culled a load of accounts and I'm now down to 143 current/savings accounts, this doesn't include investment accounts, the likes of Wirex, Revolut, paypal etc.

Fortunately I'm in my early 20s and in good health so have a long way to go before I kick the bucket (hopefully). Once I get older I may cut back on the accounts but I'm not in any hurry to do so.

Not sure if it's you that's posted about this before, but if you have 143 current/savings accounts (post cull), it may be your banks that cut down the accounts for you!

badger09

eskbanker said:

Bridlington1 said:

My estate shall likely be a pain to sort out as things stand, I've just culled a load of accounts and I'm now down to 143 current/savings accounts, this doesn't include investment accounts, the likes of Wirex, Revolut, paypal etc.

Fortunately I'm in my early 20s and in good health so have a long way to go before I kick the bucket (hopefully). Once I get older I may cut back on the accounts but I'm not in any hurry to do so.

Not sure if it's you that's posted about this before, but if you have 143 current/savings accounts (post cull), it may be your banks that cut down the accounts for you!

IIRC, a high street group carried out its own cull some time ago

Bridlington1

eskbanker said:

Bridlington1 said:

My estate shall likely be a pain to sort out as things stand, I've just culled a load of accounts and I'm now down to 143 current/savings accounts, this doesn't include investment accounts, the likes of Wirex, Revolut, paypal etc.

Fortunately I'm in my early 20s and in good health so have a long way to go before I kick the bucket (hopefully). Once I get older I may cut back on the accounts but I'm not in any hurry to do so.

Not sure if it's you that's posted about this before, but if you have 143 current/savings accounts (post cull), it may be your banks that cut down the accounts for you!

You remember correctly. See:
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6433933/lbg-closing-all-my-accounts-on-18th-may/p1

This was preceded by Barclays in November 2022 (within a few weeks of opening my first Barclays account) and followed by Metro in August 2023.

Since then I've not had any further issues though.

The only instances of my accounts being closed after August 2023 were Al Rayan, Zing and Wombat. Though I'm not concerned about these as they don't seem to've had anything to do with my account activity specifically.

Al Rayan chose to close my account because I'd kept an easy access account with them at 1p for a while when the minimum amount to open the account was £5k, IIRC there were a lot of people on here who got their Al Rayan accounts closed at about the same time for the same reason and Al Rayan's emails and letters did state I could keep the account if I brought the balance back up to £5k and was free to use them again in the future even if I didn't.

Wombat closed my account because I was on their free plan and they decided to stop offering the free plan so told anyone in my position to either have their accounts closed or upgrade to the paid version. I let them close the account as I'd only used it for the free investments which I'd sold at the earliest opportunity.

Zing chose to close my account because they're shutting down the brand so were closing down everyone's accounts anyway.

Ocelot

143 accounts is quite impressive for someone in their early 20's. I didn't get my first bank account until my first full time job at 21, and first savings account at 22.

Approaching 60, now I still 'only' have 53 (although must have had hundreds of  fixed rate 'bonds' over the years).

Nurse2047

Can I ask what spreadsheet people use that’s  password protected ? Excel or anything else ? Thanks 

mebu60

badger09 said:

surreysaver said:

I suppose if you're given advance notice of your death, you could consolidate your accounts down to a smaller number to make it easier on those dealing with them 

I haven’t been given advance notice, but having reached 75 I realise my financial affairs are unnecessarily complicated. For many years I’ve chased interest rates, switched accounts, used multiple Regular Savers & left accounts open with minimal balance in case of ‘loyalty’ offers. I’m now culling most of them. The reduction in interest won’t affect my lifestyle, HMRC will get less, and it will be so much easier to administer my Estate. Everything is documented on a password protected spreadsheet. My husband wouldn’t have a clue what to do with it, but my son can access it. 

I'm a few years behind you but had this conversation with my partner and my daughter this weekend that I have been giving thought to starting to simplify my savings and investments rather than chasing every last penny to make things easier for them should I deteriorate or die first.

badger09

Nurse2047 said:

Can I ask what spreadsheet people use that’s  password protected ? Excel or anything else ? Thanks 

I use Excel