How Do I Sign Louisiana Banking Agreement

Industry sign banking louisiana living will computer

hey I'm Paul Rabelais and this video is all about requesting that banks credit unions and fine brokerage firms stop asking for letters testamentary or letters of administration when a customer or client passes away and the survivors come in attempting to settle the estate I'm Paul Rob lay an estate planning attorney this is really relevant in Louisiana here's the situation somebody passes away they have accounts at a bank credit union or brokerage firm I'll lump those together and call financial institution they have account or accounts at fun at a financial institution their spouse their child their loved one goes to that financial institution and says hey my father passed away he had some accounts here I'm here to settle his estate banker tiblet typically says I'm sorry we can't give you any information your father's accounts frozen we need either letters testamentary or letters of administration in order to give you access to those funds so they write that down you know we need letters testamentary okay I'll be right back so they leave the bank they call our office they make an appointment they come in they come in with their little sketchy pad we just went to the bank and we need letters testamentary can you give me one of those letters and so then we're like we have to go through a kind of an educational exercise they we have to get them to realize that you know it's not quite that simple and what the bank is asking for really isn't what we're gonna be providing you to get access to the bank accounts and it's all you know subject to a court supervised procedure so here's the deal back in 2001 many years ago the Louisiana Legislature authorized a relatively new kind of independent administration of estates allows the states to be settled with less court supervision that would then was required under the previous rules and it happens this independent administration happens when either the will authorizes it the will might say I named as the executor and my executor may act as an independent executor and virtually all will since 2001 authorized that because nobody wants more court supervision than they need and even if the will doesn't authorize it all of the heirs can agree to allow the executor to be the independent executor so it happens almost in every situation and when that's the case and we file all the court pleadings to get the executor confirmed the courthouse doesn't issue what's called letters testamentary anymore they issue what's called letters of independent executor ship by the way if there's no will the court house doesn't issue letters testamentary they issue letters of in letters of administration they issued letters of independent administration when there's no will and all of the heirs agree that the administrator can act as an independent administrator so in almost every case we've got to say yes your father had a will he named you as the executor the bank says you need letters testamentary I know you don't want to go to the bank unless you have those letters testamentary in your hand but you're not going to have letters testamentary you're gonna have letters of independent executor ship and so it just causes a lot of confusion among surviving family members hard enough to handle what they got a handle and so this is just my little suggestion to the financial institutions particularly those with clients and customers in Louisiana to start stop requesting we need letters testamentary or if there's no will letters of administration and say something like you'll need to see an attorney and and get your letters of independent executor ship or letters of independent administration or in the unlikely event that there is not going to be independent administration of the estate then you can bring in either the letters testamentary or letters of administration but that's rare so just a terminology thing you know we get involved in selling these estates and when financial institution is telling them one thing we're telling them another thing they don't know who to trust they don't know what to do and it just causes more stress delay confusion when there's already all of that going on in the first place because you're trying to settle an estate with many different moving parts hope that helps y'all take care have a great day