An elderly customer recently passed and has less than $10k in balances. The accounts are sole owner. There is no will that we know of. There 'may' be a niece in another state but we're not certain. The funeral home, assited living facility and now the funeral home's attorney are all looking to the bank to release funds to them to pay expenses. We've informed them we will act on the appropriate probate documents or will discuss with the next of kin. The attorney continues to pressure us for information on the accounts. Do you agree with our stance? Or have any suggestions on how else we can handle? Thanks.

Massachusetts has no law that permits a bank to pay funds out of a decedent's individual account to a funeral home or assisted living facility. It does, as you obviously know, have a law (Sec. 33 of Chap. 167D) that permits payments of an account of $10,000 or less to a spouse or next of kin if no claim has been made by a representative of the decedent's estate.

Until you get a claim from a spouse or next of kin, you're stuck sitting on the account, which will ultimately become abandoned property. Between now and then, that ambitious funeral home attorney may try to bluff his way into accessing the funds, or attempt to attach the funds to satisfy his client's bill. I urge you to get bank counsel involved before things become adversarial so that the bank continues to act in a legally defensible way.

Thanks for the confirmation!