I have a friend who had a nightmare experience with Wells Fargo after her father died. It took years to resolve! Fore warned is forearmed.
We had some 529s with Fidelity but ditched them when they started charging maintenance fees. Older Ds had graduated and had only 1-2K left. We moved their $ to younger D and spent that balance as soon as we could. We shifted money back to the older Ds with their American Funds 529s and it’s still there.
Dad had a great relationship with a Schwab advisor. He’d stop in the guys’ office every so often just to say hello. There was a personal connection. My sister and I know the advisor and he knows us. When dad died Schwab was the only institution who assigned a representative from their estate division to handle the needed affairs. They were great!
Wells was okay. BofA a bit of a issue. Worst of all was Chase. They kept ‘chasing’ their own tail.
For logistical reasons I keep the Wells and Chase accounts active but Schwab is the repository of choice.
Adding to @dietz199’s excellent list: Find out if your parents’ medical providers allow proxy access to the My Chart account, or whatever the local variation is. These portals provide so much useful information, at least for a person with a lot of medical issues.
Interesting comments about Schwab & Fidelity. My mother’s local Schwab reps completely dropped the ball more than once. She went in person to meet with her Schwab rep after my father died. I discovered eight years later that my father was still listed as beneficiary on one of her accounts, and no one was listed on two of them. Epic fail. Weeks of following up on multiple sets of paperwork to have the beneficiaries changed, at a time when she needed assistance to execute paperwork.
Agree with benefit of getting to know the local bank branch manager, if possible. Not essential, but can be helpful.
When my father died in 2010, Wells Fargo–which had bought out whatever entity owned their bank–was a nightmare. He had 5 or 6 small savings accounts in his name alone that were designed to take advantage of some kind of promotion at the prior bank. It turned out a year later when a statement arrived in the mail that he had another one that we hadn’t even known about that they failed to reveal to us (us being my mother and I). It took me more time and trouble to get control of those accounts totaling perhaps $5K than to take care of the rest of the estate. I don’t recall all of the details anymore, but Wells Fargo refused to comply with enlightened CT law designed to expedited estates by simply giving us statements of their worth. Because they were in NC. Grrr. Luckily, the local probate court office staff were champs, and they were willing to accept recent bank statements instead.
BTW, this conversation has made me realize that although I do have an up-to-date “Master List” of all of her accounts, including utilities and insurance and so forth, I no longer remember where the POAs and will are, or what’s in the safe deposit box. Next time I’m down there we should go over it all.
BTW, my mother, who is 96 and as I mentioned above takes no meds, does not actually have a doctor. She has a dermatologist (skin cancer), a dentist, and an opthamologist. 
So sorry for your loss, sincere condolences.
If it has not been mentioned before, you should immediately have your mom to open a living trust, it is not too late. Transfer everything into that trust so when she passed away you won’t have the mess like you have now. While she is living, it is very manageable for your passing Dad’s account. If your dad has set up account correctly, he should have named beneficiaries. If not, its easy to have your mom to take over the accounts with the death certificate, although it might take some time. What I had problem with was the life insurance policies, some how they demand more info and you have to do it long distance.
One of the problems I have had with my mom’s POA is that there is no one uniform POA will coverall, even it is drawn by a lawyer and was notarized. Mom had Parkinson’s and later on Dementia, she could not and will not handle her finances as a result, I have to be the POA of her financing affairs. Fortunately, we were able to set it up for her before she was incapacitated. I strongly recommend to set those up BEFORE her total incapacitation, because the doctor normally is not willing to issue that incapacitation statement if she had “some” capacity and cannot handle her finances. All the doctors did is to ask her name, birthday and home address, if she can answer that, she is deemed capable.
We had to go to each financial institution to file their own POA form, notarize each and it is PIA. In one case, I believe Social Security, we had to wheel her in to prove her capable to appoint me as POA.
@dietz199
One of the risk of put yourself on parents account is that could invoke gift tax and if you are involved in a devoice, if the sum is large enough. Also, if real estate is involved, there might be inheritance controversy and liability issues. It is far better to get to handle their finances by POA or Trustee of their living and or residual trust.
^Wow, that’s interesting. What a pain.
I was thinking that maybe I should make a googledoc with my info and share with my daughter. (I am the only parent and she is the only child.)
Agree that Schwab was very helpful with my parents’ estate, as was Merrill Lynch. I wish we had hired an attorney, though, instead of trying to figure it out ourselves. It would have been worth it.
@artloversplus All the current assets are held in mom’s survivors trust. My sib’s and my signatures are as ‘trustees’, or now as ‘dietz199 as POA for dietzparent’. Agree, one has to be very careful as to the possible exposure with any and all of this.
And, there are still hidden gotcha’s. Inspire of all H and I had researched and learned, in spite of having a good legal team, we almost made an expensive mistake. In CA a child can inherit property and maintain what is known as a ‘Prop 13 tax basis’. CA property taxes continue to be set by a 1972(?) proposition which set them at a specific rate with only specific allowed increases. The tax basis can transfer to a child but only if title is held by an individual (vs LLC ) We discovered this by accident. Would have been a very expensive oversight. So many details, and it’s always a moving target.
RE: “Prop 13 tax basis”
BE extremely careful about this. It is very complicated and an estate lawyer with experiences in Real Estate must be retained prior to any action to draw up the documents and answer questions from the county tax authority. We retained and paid $350/hr for some one who is qualified to avoid any complications. Our $90/hr lawyer did not know what to do and I fired him.
My cousin did not and faced the consequences, the county deemed that their taking over the deceased parents home is taxable to the extent that they only entitled 25% of the tax relief because they have 4 siblings. They made a fatal mistake to pay the siblings off to take over the home prior consulting to a lawyer with expertise. They also got double whamy because they have to pay capital gain tax to sell their home to pay off siblings and got a big tax basis increase for their parents home.
@dietz199 You were not clear in your prior posting about “Get at least one family member to be an authorized signature authority on each account” advice, thus my posting.
^^^. Maybe we met in the lawyers office :). That’s what ours runs and they specialize in estate planning. The run of the mill trust attorney doesn’t know the nuances.
@artloversplus, right now I’m on my elderly parent’s bank account so I can handle their finances, bills, etc. Are you saying it’s better to be taken off their account and just set it up with the bank as their DPOA so I can continue to do financial business on their behalf? They can’t handle their finances (mom has Parkinson’s dementia and dad is legally blind but of sound mind) and I just want to do right by them without inadvertently being penalized by the IRS.
With all the different trusts being talked about my eyes are starting to glaze over, lol.
@dietz199 (#33) covered almost everything I would have said. Item 1 has to get everything done when parent is still plainly competent – avoiding the issues noted by @artloversplus (#45). I will only add that you should be careful with mail forwarding if parent is hospitalized or dies. Set the end date for as long as possible, because it is extremely difficult to change it – even with all the documents that a bank finds perfectly acceptable – later on. That was my experience, at least, and even though the assisted living facility was very good at forwarding things periodically, some tax documents went unreceived the next year.
I actually changed the mailing address on record so the paper bills, monthly reports come to my address. Wherever possible I went paperless. My email address is on record and e-bills go to mom’s account. And, because I am a signature authority on mom’s accounts with my SSN on record, I am able to establish an online relationship so mom’s accounts can appear under my profile.
In spite of all of this I have yet to be successful in getting her property tax bills to sent my address. Their online records show my address, the folks on the phone acknowledge my address. And yet, the bills happily land in mom’s mailbox year after year. Sigh.
Please, please do not get you name on your parents account, you need to be a DPOA or trustee to write check or make investment decision for them. In addition to the complication mentioned, God forbid if you die before them, your siblings or family will face a total mess and it might take years to clear it out.
We’ve done what my SIL did for my in-laws. She was a second on the savings account, but tax forms and such went to my MIL until she died, and then they went to my SIL. The only penalty to my SIL is that she then got charged for the taxes on the interest, which she paid out of the account so no out-of-pocket expenses to SIL. She would annually write each sibling gift checks under the amount that would accrue taxes until the money was gone, which was about four years. Did we get away with something?
I apologize if this is redundant; I didn’t read all comments. My mom died first, and we really didn’t have to do much after she died (I think - my sister was the executor) because everything then became my dad’s. After he died, the you-know-what hit the you-know-what. Note: do check that something major hasn’t been changed. My parents both named me executor on their will in the 90s when they were of sound mind. Twenty years later, they changed that to my sister, who they would not have chosen if in sound mind and aware of what an executor needs to do. Nevertheless, we managed and it is over now.
I would most decidedly not open the letter. In general, do not overstep unless your mother is truly incapable of making decisions.
"I would most decidedly not open the letter. In general, do not overstep unless your mother is truly incapable of making decisions. "
Absolutely, but most of them will relinquish their responsibility if it turns out too much chore for them and you should take over with their consent and approval. There is time that even they are capable, they do not want to be bothered with the chores. Doctors cannot sign off during this gray period, your parents could do it on their own initiatives. It is a difficult decision.