Recommended bank to open Executors account?

Some of my observations:-
When my mother died last October I tried to open Executor's accounts at my own banks - a)NatWest -refused without any reason, even tho' I've been a customer of theirs for nearly 50 years!! b) Santander -gave my an appointment,then phoned me at home to cancel because as my Mother had been a customer of Lloyds not Santander, they could not satisfy their internal regulations re money laundering!!!
I then travelled to her own branch of Lloyds, and went thru it with the manager -he could see no problems - but it took several attempts and nearly two months before an account was set up !!

And don't get me started with the attempt to "freeze" my mother's current account - they carried on paying out S.Os and allowed incorrect DDs -then had the cheek to send letters addressed to "My mother deceased,deceased" raising bank charges -when I phoned them I was told that they had no record of her death !:mad:


Anyone would think that death was a rare occurrence !!!:eek:

I did not wish to use the bank which the deceased banked with, because they had treated me inappropriately when I registered a LPA, resulting in a complaint to the Ombudsman, which led to a compensation payment. So when it came to opening an Executor account I couldn't stand that bank because of the way they had treated me and mum previously. My own bank didn't offer an Exec account, and no other bank would allow me to open an account, or, if they did, there was no interest on sums paid in. So I opened an account that is linked to my current account, which pays around 1% interest. The PO and some building socs offer such accounts and I explained it was for probate and they allowed me to open it.

None of it has been easy. My own bank's probate team told me they could open an Executor account, then when I went in to a branch to speak to someone, they said they didn't do Exec accounts at all, but I could just open a new account online and call it an 'Exec Account' and use it for that purpose. They suggested I pop into the bank next door, a related financial institution.

But the bank next door did have exec accounts. However, they wouldn't open an account for me. Despite their relationship with my bank.

there seem to be different definitions of what an executor's account is ...

dad's bank (:(barclays:() only lets you open one with grant of probate, ie at the end of the executor process, as does :(hsbc:( - I have no idea what purpose such an account could have

what I want is an account in the name of the estate of dad, to receive any payments due to the estate (I am told these cannot be paid into an account with any other name), ie to be used before probate is granted

barclays were as helpful as they could be and did tell me an executor's account didn't have to be with dad's bank, so I googled and :)natwest:) came up trumps - lovely, helpful, sympathetic staff, and happy to open an executor's account on the basis of grant of representation ie much earlier in the process - phew!

laticsforlife wrote: »

First Direct have been happy to take cheques since the end of April for dividends & some small <£5k share-sale cheques, and other refunds etc, but when I deposited 4x cheques totalling £19k last week via the machine, they baulked and said I needed an executors account which they don't do - HSBC (the parent) do them, and my appointment in in 10 bl00dy days time.

What a total waste of time; I'm going to move any funds as soon as they clear into my own FD account until such time as they need paying out, as I can do that far more easily.

These cheques have been missing for a week now, very annoying!

Seems that you can "get away" with any old account if the sums involved are small -but once they exceed some internal banking limit it triggers anti money laundering processes -and the banks are all so scared of falling foul of their own internal audit teams, that they take the easy way out and won't/don't offer executor's accounts!!:(