While it's common practice to designate a beneficiary for investment accounts, life insurance policies or individual retirement accounts, it's less so for basic checking and savings accounts. It's not required to name the recipient of these funds, but it may be wise to do so anyway.
Your bank accounts will go through probate if you have not named a beneficiary, which can be a long and arduous process for your heirs. It may take months before your assets are settled.
A Well Thought Out Estate Plan
If you choose the route of forgoing a trust and listing beneficiaries directly with the financial institutions, please don't forget that you will also need a will and these powers of attorney, even if you choose not to do a trust.
Yes. It is always a good idea to have a trust to handle your assets after your death.
Not all bank accounts are suitable for a Living Trust. If you need regular access to an account, you may want to keep it in your name rather than the name of your Trust. Or, you may have a low-value account that won't benefit from being put in a Trust.
The primary disadvantage of naming a trust as beneficiary is that the retirement plan's assets will be subjected to required minimum distribution payouts, which are calculated based on the life expectancy of the oldest beneficiary.
Most life insurance policies have a default order of payment if you do not name a beneficiary. For many individual policies, the death benefit will be paid to the owner of the policy if they are different than the insured person and still alive, otherwise it will be paid to the owner's estate.
A trust can give you more control over how your assets are distributed. You can name a trust as a direct beneficiary of an account. Upon your death, your assets transfer to the trust and distributions are made from the trust to its beneficiaries according to your wishes.
It's generally a bad idea to name more than one beneficiary, for two reasons. First, if you name your spouse and someone else as beneficiaries, your spouse loses the special benefits and flexibility they would otherwise have. Second, it complicates things.
If you need to send money across to another account, you need to add the account as a beneficiary. Keep the beneficiary's account details handy. These include the bank account number, the IFSC code, the branch details, the beneficiary's name as mentioned in the bank account, and phone number.
Regardless of what your will says, whoever is named as the designated beneficiary on each account will receive that asset.
If there is no beneficiary named at the time the account holder dies, the account will be frozen, and the account will enter the probate process. During that time, the money in the account is inaccessible until the probate process is completed and an executor distributes the estate.
Bottom Line
Whether you call it a payable-on-death account or a Totten trust, this type of account can serve a useful purpose when creating an estate plan. The main benefit is its ability to bypass the probate process and for the funds to go directly to your beneficiary.
The principal determines the scope of the agent's authority. Depending on the principal's directive, an agent with power of attorney can: Open an account but must first meet certain requirements and present specific documents. Be a beneficiary, for example, if they're a spouse to the principal.
Selecting the wrong trustee is easily the biggest blunder parents can make when setting up a trust fund. As estate planning attorneys, we've seen first-hand how this critical error undermines so many parents' good intentions.
If your beneficiaries are already assigned to your accounts, the assets will pass to them by contract. If a beneficiary is not named, your heirs may have to go through probate, a legal process for settling an estate after someone dies. That makes beneficiary designations — up-to-date ones — extremely important.
A trustee typically has the most control in running their trust. They are granted authority by their grantor to oversee and distribute assets according to terms set out in their trust document, while beneficiaries merely reap its benefits without overseeing its operations themselves.
Estranged relatives or former spouses – Family relationships can be complicated, so think carefully if an estranged relative or ex-spouse really aligns with your wishes. Pets – Pets can't legally own property, so naming them directly as beneficiaries is problematic.
If your husband passed away and you are not listed on his bank account, the account will likely go through probate unless it is a joint account or has a named beneficiary. Probate is a legal process where the court oversees the distribution of assets.
While a spouse doesn't override a designated beneficiary on a bank account, they may be entitled to a portion of the assets in a payable-on-death bank account if those assets are community property.
It can be advantageous to put most or all of your bank accounts into your trust, especially if you want to streamline estate administration, maintain privacy, and ensure assets are distributed according to your wishes.
Once assets are placed in an irrevocable trust, you no longer have control over them, and they won't be included in your Medicaid eligibility determination after five years. It's important to plan well in advance, as the 5-year look-back rule still applies.
Naming the same person as trustee and beneficiary can be problematic. Not only can it lead to a trustee and beneficiary conflict of interest, but it can make it difficult for the trustee to uphold their duty to treat all beneficiaries equally.