Executors Bank Account - where? ! How to deal with estate if cannot get this simple account.

gplion55

If you are the assigned executor, you are perfectly entitled to open a separate bank account in your own name and use this to handle the executor's financial incoming and outgoing funds. It is important to document everything regarding claimed expenses or paid bills and to keep any other co-executors regularly updated by providing them with a copy of a statement.

Cubicsrube

I am sorry for your loss. But maybe extend the same grace you’re requesting to all those who generously penetrated the wall of text by acknowledging the attempt to help. As has been stated, an executor account isn’t necessary. Have administered two estates without one in the last 3 years.

Re the banking rant/farce. You must realise that choosing to have neither passport nor driver’s license, and no smartphone, you have created the circumstances that require extraordinary identity verification steps, in person. You are an extreme edge case so the banks probably don’t have a clear playbook either and are figuring it out as they go.

Trust seems in short supply in your own relationships, so it is ironic you expect banks to simply trust that you are who you say you are without the required proof.

spreadsheeterapple

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82054073#Comment_82054073

It isn't a choice to be elderly non-driver, no foreign travel for needing a passport, no wish of smartphone expense, and none of that is legally required so there ARE alternative playbooks for banks to follow to comply with not discriminating on the basis of age. Where it falls short is lack of staff training. Stop blame game against me, it's their fault not mine.

'trust in short supply in relationships' is due to fraud & abuse & immoral activities; it's not for you to criticise our shunning of those people, isn't a choice but forced upon us due to their extensive wrongdoings. There's nothing ironic in our wish to live cleanly.

We will ask our solicitor why so many people are telling us an executors account isn't necessary, when they always had been previously and solicitor told us to open one; we will ask how we are to manage things instead, and will ask cheque-senders to replace refunds in a payee name which is usable, citing that we are not supposed to be required to have an exors account in the first place. We'll see what is then said.

Cubicsrube

Unless you are severely impoverished, those are indeed all choices. It's understandable that you perhaps didn't anticipate these kind of consequences when you made those choices. I'm simply suggesting that you may get more people (at banks; on internet forums) wanting to help you if you project less of an air of righteous ingratitude and entitlement.

For the future, the ID documents you've assembled may allow you to get a £15 PASS card (photo ID) from the post office.

RAS

It's actually reasonably easy to open bank accounts as long as you are on the electoral roll and have a utility bill related to that address. An over 60s bus pass is useful photo ID. I've taken my passport on a number of occasions and been told it's not necessary.

Beyond that some banks and building societies are more flexible because they have committed to providing banking to those without the core documents.

user1977

expectation of photo-ID, which is impossible for people who've never had a passport or new-type photo driving licence

Not impossible at all, perfectly feasible to get a passport or a new driving licence. Whether you ought to be required to do so is a different question of course.

thegreenone

https://www.electoralcommission.org.uk/voting-and-elections/voter-id/applying-a-voter-authority-certificate

Would this work?

user1977

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82056235#Comment_82056235

I don't think they're widely accepted as ID (beyond for the purposes of voting).

kermchem

As I read this thread, the OP's surviving parent has died, leaving OP and sibling as executors and as main but not sole beneficiaries. OP reports that they and sibling mutually distrust each other. OP and sibling have got as far as Probate has been granted to both executors. OP and sibling live a long way apart, and OP does not have the photo ID that many banks etc require.

My sibling and I wound up my surviving parent's estate although 300 miles apart, as co-executors, and on good speaking terms. Some organisations accepted instructions from one of us, some did require both to sign. I don't recall that any required us both in the same room at the same time, other than the solicitor selling house who just had to accept that this was not going to happen.

Sibling and I took all payments in to my current account and all payments to sibling went out the same. Each payment in was documented in e-mail as was each payment out. Yes, we distributed as funds arrived, but over a few weeks. Even the awkward solicitor hired just to sell the house accepted that the funds had to be paid to just one executor. No-one paid funds in a cheque to "executor of deceased" even if letters were addressed like that.

Separately, OH and I have always had our own current accounts. We have recently decided that having a joint account that pays the utilities, etc. has many merits. I have long had a Nationwide account as a spare current account. I had no trouble opening a second Nationwide current account in joint names while my OH was at work. Give it a try.

magicmoneyportaloo

https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/comment/82054722#Comment_82054722

i think the other thing his is that OP getting the ID is likely going to be less effort in the end than trying to get out of getting one.

When I was a young adult, I had a tendency to be uncooperative when I felt it wasn't fair that things had to be done in a certain way, and caused huge problems for myself by doubling down about it. But there was no shortcut in learning that lesson, and the answer wasn't play along and be compliant more, but learning when to pick my battles.