Executor for Brother - Frustration with BofA - Any Suggestions?

[ImThinkin2019]

My brother passed away about 4 weeks ago. Left me as Executor and Trustee.

I have been working with the BofA Estate group to get his existing account closed and rolled into the trust account. Still has not happened. Did get a letter saying "We have all we need. Within 30 days we will tell you if we need anything more."

Within this time, Vanguard and his employer have both transferred his funds smoothly. Very easy to deal with.

Based on the BofA experience I was ready to change my banking to a local bank. But local small banks get bad reviews on yelp for 24/7 availability, response time, and worldwide availability.

Have any of you switched from a large bank and moved to a small one? Have you been happy?

Any suggestions for getting the sloth of BofA Estate Group to move?

 

[big-papa]

Yes, well sorta. We moved from BofA years ago after they bought our local bank and took away free checking. Moved to a Credit Union and have been super happy there for a couple of decades now.

 

[MichaelB]

When my aunt passed away it took WF a year to manage all the transfers, including two IRA's not subject to probate. I think the banks take this long because they can, and you have no option.



For many years we used two banks, one large national and one community. The community bank got top marks for branch office service, but their online capabilities were inadequate.

 

[CaliKid]

I have dealt with this type of thing many times and in my experience the estate departments at the big banks are more informed than the average employee at the smaller banks. That is, at the big banks it's a more limited job description so they know what to do. I would suspect your problem is you need an experienced attorney who can talk bank/estate talk to make things move slowly. In my experience, which is significant, banks turn over money within 24 hours and often the same day if you do all the paperwork they want and do it all right. I have plenty of bad bank stories but this does not sound like one of them to me.

 

[Amethyst]

I'm so sorry about your brother.

 

[ExFlyBoy5]

I loathe all things BoA. I call them "The BoA constrictors." I could spend a good hour documenting their antics with DW and me, but I like to control my blood pressure. I prefer mid sized banks for local stuff an USAA for bigger banking products.

 

[RobbieB]

I had no problem with B of A. Setting up the trust account took a long time (faxing trust pages to the main office) but smooth after the fact.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

I'm sorry about your brother. I have no useful advice, but I will add that when I closed my mother's accounts, BoA was the only bank that had the gall to insist on subjecting me to a sales pitch before they would consider closing the account for me. The rep literally wouldn't start the paperwork until they pestered me about keeping the money with them.

 

[Sunset]

My personal belief based on being executor for DM is:

Banks want to hold onto the money , which can be huge (not my DM, but other accounts I saw while sitting with the Banker), as there were a lot of these accounts, and all earning little interest.

1. It's like having a free float to invest.
2. Plus, there is the "worry" that if they release the funds, someone will sue claiming to be the rightful heir or dead person so the safe thing is to keep the money.

 

[Bamaman]

I used to walk into banks, and they had large, impressive buildings with offices lining the walls. Now you go in, and there's one or two recent college graduates. Need a loan, and they point you to the computer terminal on a desk--for you to do the application yourself. Nobody seems to know much about anything.

Now, banks are ghost businesses with few people walking in other than business deposits. And forget about getting preferential rates on loans at the big major banks.

But I do use Wells Fargo because of their fabulous computer systems and they give me enough overdraft protection where I don't have to watch my checking account closely. Otherwise, I keep my big money in online banks like Ally Bank. I also do business at a local credit union from time to time.

If I needed withdrawals from any financial institution, my fat executor's butt would be sitting in the manager's office until they gave me a check or a wire transfer notice.

 

[Scrapr]

I have dealt with this type of thing many times and in my experience the estate departments at the big banks are more informed than the average employee at the smaller banks. That is, at the big banks it's a more limited job description so they know what to do. I would suspect your problem is you need an experienced attorney who can talk bank/estate talk to make things move slowly. In my experience, which is significant, banks turn over money within 24 hours and often the same day if you do all the paperwork they want and do it all right. I have plenty of bad bank stories but this does not sound like one of them to me.

hahahaha. You do realize it's BofA? DF died. He had BofA accounts including one account that was set up outside the trust account. We can't prove it but strongly suspect a BofA employee set that up while he was impaired with his Alzheimers. After providing at least 4 times all documents requested they would wait a week to 10 days and request the same docs again. Also the trustees were living in different Stats. You would hope that docs could be signed at a local branch & transmitted internally. You would be wrong. Had to fly to the branch where all 3 trustees could all sign off & withdraw the money

BofA is scum & villany

The money was moved to a local Credit Union the same day it was available

 

[Potstickers]

BofA was a PITA when we had to have DH take on a successor trustee role after the death of my FIL. This was precisely as specified in the original trust document. They balked. We met at the bank with MIL, the lawyer, and DH. They sent it off to the legal department and the funds were frozen for about 3 months. They finally decided that all was legit and we moved every dollar out of BofA immediately thereafter.

 

[Souschef]

I have never had a good experience with B of A. The former idiot treasurer of our HOA had our accounts there and there were nothing but a PITA. As soon as I took over, I moved the money.
One of our former treasurers embezzled a bunch of $$. We got the money back, but not the lost interest or the legal fees..

 

[Scratchy]

My early experiences with Bank of America caused me to swear I would never do business with them again.

At one point I got a credit card that somehow became a Bank of America credit card. That ended very badly too.

My mortgage ended up being purchased by Countrywide, morphing into Bank of America. Another nightmare.

Family member died and I served as executor. Had to deal with the Bank of America Estate Group. This was the worst experience among all of the above.

Good luck.

 

[DrRoy]

When we first moved to Michigan over 20 years ago, we selected National Bank of Detroit. That has since been bought up twice and is now Chase. We are still happy with the service though.