My mother passed away in April. Two weeks ago Mom’s tax refund check came in the mail. We didn’t even think about her tax refund while dealing with her illness and her passing and everything that came after. Then this check shows up. I was her power of attorney but that expired once she passed away and unfortunately her bank is already aware that she has passed. She didn’t have a will or any kind of estate (she lived with my sister) and she had no other bank accounts. I am a joint owner on her bank account.
So what do we do with this check? The bank says the check has to be endorsed to be accepted for deposit, they won’t allow us to write “For Deposit Only” on it. I’m not having much luck finding any information online on what to do and my sister is getting tired of trying to get through to the IRS so I thought I’d ask here if anyone has any knowledge of what to do.
I don’t know who “they” are at the bank that wouldn’t allow you to write “for deposit only” on it and put it in an account in her name. I think I’d push a little harder on that, and try to get to a manager or someone with authority. I don’t see why they wouldn’t allow that. If you tried all that already, I think you’d need to have an executor appointed for your mother’s estate. If this is the only asset that’s causing a problem, it’s probably not worth it.
I can’t speak to the legality of it, but if you have online access to that account, you can probably deposit the check with your phone.
A handful of fake checks have been withdrawn from my business’ bank account that were deposited via an app. No one is looking at them. The only reason they were caught is because I reported them to the bank.
Can give just my experience.
I had my deceased father’s taxes done by the person who was his preparer for years. She put “deceased” on the filing, and gave the name of the executor (my sister).
Unfortunately the refund check came addressed to my father. Nothing we could do with it since we had already closed his bank account.
According to the IRS we needed to send them the death certificate, a will stating name of executor, and a certified letter stating the person requesting the refund was indeed the executor.
My sister didn’t want to go through this hassle, so never sent away for the check (it wasn’t a very large amount, $100-200).
This was many years ago, so perhaps this anecdote is out of date.
Another anecdote-not-data: My wife had died in a January, so after I filed our joint tax return for the previous year the refund check issued by the IRS was in both of our names. By the time I got it all of our joint accounts had been closed. So I took it to my credit union and asked if I could deposit it there. They had no problem accepting it. I can’t remember how they had me endorse it, but the IRS never questioned it.
By and large no human looks at a check if it is deposited by phone or ATM unless someone questions it later. So the easiest thing to do in any of these situations is just try to deposit the check if it includes your name.
I’m not sure if “beneficiary” is enough, though. Anyone entitled to receive a share of the estate is a beneficiary (and in general, under most or all state’s intestacy laws, any sibling would be entitled to receive an equal share of the estate, however small, and so be neither more nor less a “beneficiary” than any other). I think what’s needed is a personal representative, which doesn’t require a will, but might require a court appointment depending on state law. This is of course not legal advice.
I know one of the first things my sister did as executrix of our mother’s estate was to go to the bank and set up an estate account. All the transactions went through that account. We didn’t have to worry about a tax return. She always had to pay.
For the OP, what you might consider doing is searching for the following in Google (or your preferred search engine):
Small estate personal representative [insert your state’s name]
Many states have legal service websites run by their state bar or a nonprofit legal service corporation that provide helpful legal information (not advice) for common scenarios like yours.
Again, laws will vary by state, so it might be helpful to find out what your (or rather, your mother’s) state requires for someone to act on behalf of an estate (ie: what many states call a “personal representative”).
Hi, sorry to hear of your family’s loss. My wife’s mom died a few months ago and we had to deal with several checks coming in, but bank accounts frozen as soon as the bank learned of the death.
In her case, I applied for an EIN (Employer Identification Number) which permitted us to open an “Estate Account” at the bank and deposit the checks to that account. The EIN online application process (link below) is pretty simple and you get the number as soon as you submit.
(It does seem dumb to me that they use the Employer form for estates, and it makes a lot of the questions on the form “N/A”, so although I said “pretty simple”, they could have made it a lot simpler by just having an entirely separate application for estates).
In our case, because her mom had a will and a house that passes to my wife under the will, we have to do the probate court work, have the potential creditor notice time periods expire, and get the court’s final closing of the probate process before my wife can legally transfer he mom’s stuff to herself (exception mentioned below).
That may be a lot more than you want to deal with. Or - it’s possible that in your state, for small items like a tax refund check, there might be a simplified probate process. Our state has a weird deal where we were able to transfer her mom’s car title with nothing more than a copy of the death certificate and a notarized form stating my wife was the heir. The danged car was worth triple the total of the checks sitting in the estate account…
I came to say this. My Mom died in March. We’ve had tons of refund checks from accounts I’ve cancelled. I write for deposit only on the back with account number and then deposit them with my mobile app. Works like a charm. Plus I have evidence for my sibs that this is where it went. Win,win. BTW, sorry for your loss. I’m still really hurting and I know you probably are as well. For me I do pretty well and then bammm, something comes up I have to deal with and it’s raw again.