- Jurisdiction
- Michigan
In brief: I am Power of Attorney and named on two joint bank accounts of an elderly lady with dementia. Does my status as joint account holder take precedence over the provisions of her Trust, once she dies, so that I can send some money to her relatives whom I believe were overlooked when she established her Trust beneficiaries?
To go into further detail: this elderly lady (call her Olivia) was in a decades long relationship with my father, who is now deceased. She has a brother in a neighboring state and some distant great-nieces and nephews, but I am her nearest close connection so she made me her Power of Attorney. In 2016 she set up her estate documents, which included the POA and a Revocable Living Trust. The trust is set up such that Olivia is the primary trustee and her friend (call her Marge) is successor trustee. I am the alternate successor trustee.
Olivia's Trust is the sole beneficiary of her investment accounts. The Trust is written so that upon her death, the funds in the Trust are distributed among four named beneficiaries. There are also two joint bank accounts in which Olivia is the principal account owner along with me. A provision of the Trust (called a Comprehensive Transfer Document) states that bank accounts formerly owned by Olivia are now owned by the Trustee. What I am wondering is how and whether this applies to joint accounts, and if I have the ability to act independently once Olivia dies.
In a joint bank account, when one account owner dies the other owner becomes sole owner. When the joint owner is a trustee, however, does that trustee have an obligation to disburse the funds according to the Trust? A further complication is that through an oversight I had neglected to establish a TOD on one of these two accounts. The Trust should have been named as the beneficiary. Does the Comprehensive Transfer Document overrule the TOD? The named joint account owner, according to the bank, is "Olivia". Not the Trust.
It might seem that I am angling to get some money away from the beneficiaries, to my benefit. Actually it would be to her relatives benefit. The fact is that it has always made me uncomfortable that Olivia's brother, great-nieces and nephews were cut out of her will entirely (aside from inheriting some silverware). Having gone through Olivia's documents recently, I found a 20 year-old will which gives half the proceeds of Olivia's house to her brother. This will is, of course, null and void, but I believe that it would still be her intention and that her brother was omitted by oversight. I am about to sell Olivia's house, and would like to find a way to get some money to her relatives.
My thoughts were this: to sell the house and keep the proceeds in the joint bank account. After Olivia dies, the proceeds of her investment accounts would pass to the beneficiaries of the Trust. Once the obligations of the Trust are paid, the Trust is dissolved and the joint bank account falls into my sole possession. I would then write a series of checks to Olivia's relatives. Would this not be feasible since, because of the transfer document, the Trustee (Olivia's friend Marge) would now be joint owner and bound to distribute the funds according to the rules of the Trust? Most importantly, how does this apply to a joint bank account? Does my position as joint owner give me any say over how these funds are distributed?
To go into further detail: this elderly lady (call her Olivia) was in a decades long relationship with my father, who is now deceased. She has a brother in a neighboring state and some distant great-nieces and nephews, but I am her nearest close connection so she made me her Power of Attorney. In 2016 she set up her estate documents, which included the POA and a Revocable Living Trust. The trust is set up such that Olivia is the primary trustee and her friend (call her Marge) is successor trustee. I am the alternate successor trustee.
Olivia's Trust is the sole beneficiary of her investment accounts. The Trust is written so that upon her death, the funds in the Trust are distributed among four named beneficiaries. There are also two joint bank accounts in which Olivia is the principal account owner along with me. A provision of the Trust (called a Comprehensive Transfer Document) states that bank accounts formerly owned by Olivia are now owned by the Trustee. What I am wondering is how and whether this applies to joint accounts, and if I have the ability to act independently once Olivia dies.
In a joint bank account, when one account owner dies the other owner becomes sole owner. When the joint owner is a trustee, however, does that trustee have an obligation to disburse the funds according to the Trust? A further complication is that through an oversight I had neglected to establish a TOD on one of these two accounts. The Trust should have been named as the beneficiary. Does the Comprehensive Transfer Document overrule the TOD? The named joint account owner, according to the bank, is "Olivia". Not the Trust.
It might seem that I am angling to get some money away from the beneficiaries, to my benefit. Actually it would be to her relatives benefit. The fact is that it has always made me uncomfortable that Olivia's brother, great-nieces and nephews were cut out of her will entirely (aside from inheriting some silverware). Having gone through Olivia's documents recently, I found a 20 year-old will which gives half the proceeds of Olivia's house to her brother. This will is, of course, null and void, but I believe that it would still be her intention and that her brother was omitted by oversight. I am about to sell Olivia's house, and would like to find a way to get some money to her relatives.
My thoughts were this: to sell the house and keep the proceeds in the joint bank account. After Olivia dies, the proceeds of her investment accounts would pass to the beneficiaries of the Trust. Once the obligations of the Trust are paid, the Trust is dissolved and the joint bank account falls into my sole possession. I would then write a series of checks to Olivia's relatives. Would this not be feasible since, because of the transfer document, the Trustee (Olivia's friend Marge) would now be joint owner and bound to distribute the funds according to the rules of the Trust? Most importantly, how does this apply to a joint bank account? Does my position as joint owner give me any say over how these funds are distributed?