Safe Deposit Box Realities No One Will Tell You - YouTube

so in this video we're going to talk about the safe-deposit box realities that no

one will tell you all right now some people have safe-deposit boxes and some

people who have safe-deposit boxes put their important legal papers in those

boxes their wills their trusts their powers of attorney and sometimes that

causes problems later in life I want to give you a good example of some of the

problems that can surface but before I do I want to remind you just to just to

let you know that I post on this YouTube channel every morning at 10 a.m. Central

time so just tune in shortly after 10:00 and you'll get a new kind of educational

piece on estate planning so have a lot of fun doing doing it if you've got

suggestions bring them on in the comments below about topics that you'd

like to find out more about okay so here's the scenario that happened about

five months ago a father I'll call him a dad he passed

away and after he died the family knew he had a safe deposit box but nobody

knew where the key was and the family assumed and still does assume that dad's

will was in the safe-deposit box so they come to us and we get involved and we

realized there's some pleadings that have to be filed at the courthouse

there's some orders that have to be signed by a judge but before we start

that probate and get courthouse employees and judges involved we contact

the bank we always want to you know talk to the bank where that safe-deposit box

is to hear from them you know what what they need from us so that we can get in

the box so we contacted the bank they said all we need is that that that order

that orders that you take an inventory of the box so we prepared the

appropriate petition to institute search for will filed that at the courthouse

and then about three months after dad died about two months ago the judge

signs the appropriate court - and and the court order orders that

the safe-deposit box be drilled and that the will and pertinent contents be

removed from the safe-deposit box so we send that over to the branch manager and

say you know when can we come by to get this taken care of and then that's just

just delay because the bank branch manager is just kind of one of those who

when they say that we're supposed to call them to get information or set

something up they're never available to take the call and when they suggest that

we email them to schedule stuff we never get a reply email one of those so my dog

is working in the background so if there's a delay there so finally we hear

from the bank all right so you can come and you can get the Box drilled and get

the wheel and the contents from the box but we just need the death certificate

and the court order that you have and the letters testamentary and a judgment

of possession so we're rolling our eyes and we're like we can't get the letters

testamentary and the judgment of possession until we file the will at the

courthouse and the will is locked up in your safe deposit box

so more delay more frustration finally we go to the estates Department of big

bank and this was this wasn't is a big bank and when you go to the estates

Department you go to the lawyers of the estates Department who were not real

Swift in their response time so that's where we are right now it's been five

months since dad died we don't know if the Wills in the safe-deposit box or not

accounts or frozen nobody can get at the funds and we're stayed at still waiting

on the banks estates Department to get back with us to do to give us the okay

to get to drill the safe deposit box and remove the contents so all kinds of

problems here one is there is a safe deposit box that nobody can enter

and we have to get it drilled because nobody knows where the keys are we have

to rely on the judges and the courthouse employees to sign the court orders and

get us the certified copies of those we have to rely on the bank branch managers

and I realize bankers on a day-to-day basis deal with people depositing money

into bank accounts and withdrawing money from bank accounts and banks typically

don't on a daily basis deal with all of these probate or succession court

pleadings so they get confused every time you know one of these things pops

up and we're dealing with the estates Department which is just apparently in

some back office or the bank has lawyers at law firms that they've got to consult

with which is more delay in these matters so it made me realize that what

people don't like about this whole probate process or in Louisiana we call

it succession process is it leads to the family's loss of control so accounts are

frozen and then the families at the mercy of judges and court house

employees families at the mercy of bank employees families at the mercy of bank

lawyers and family quite frankly is at the mercy of their own lawyer that they

hire to get them through all of this process so that's what I think kind of

gets it in people's you know it kind of gets it gives them a bad taste in their

mouth about probate is that loss of control and it's all being done at a

difficult time as well so that makes it even worse

so this things you know things I'll update you on how it develops you know

we're still waiting but things you know could have been done differently and I

realize dad had a long bout with dementia or Alzheimer's that you know

contributed to maybe some things not being set up exactly right but when if

you do have a safe deposit box make sure and don't just ask your lawyers but ask

thank how to arrange things so that someone else can get in that box without

any difficulty after you pass away and then also because in this circumstance

there's frozen accounts you likely can fairly easily easily set up accounts so

that trusted family members can access the access those accounts after you pass

away because some accounts permit beneficiary designations some accounts

permit payable-on-death some accounts permit others to have signature

Authority some accounts will need to be in your living trust which will give

your successor trustee / family member the ability to access data meeting

immediately after you pass away so that's the key there is arranging things

so that your family doesn't get that sense of loss of control for a period of

likely months after you pass away alright so hope that helps with your

safe-deposit box matters we'll see you next time

ten o'clock central time every morning see you them make sure you subscribe and

hit the notification bell give it a thumbs up and then share this with other

people who might have safe deposit box we'll see you next time