A few threads noted that when a sole owner dies, the authorization for electronic fund transfers also terminates, though some financial institutions might take some risk to pay things like utility bills.
We have a joint account where one of the joint tenants died and they had many recurring EFTs set up. For operational reasons, we usually require the surviving client to open a new sole owner account and reestablish the EFTs. But in the meantime, is it ok for the exisiting transfers to continue? Does it depend on which of the joint tenants was the one who gave the original authorization?

If they became unauthorized at the time of death, I'm sure the surviving owner will let you know. Otherwise, how would you pick and choose?

Thank you for the response. I am trying to figure out if we might have liablity to the estate beneficiaries or creditors if an ACH from a joint account that was only authorized by the deceased joint tenant is allowed to go out the door. Maybe where there are rights of survivorship it is less of a concern, but even then, what if the surviving joint tenant did not want the money to go out?
1.Seems like best practice might be to systematically freeze all debit entries that we initiate until we talk with the surviving joint tenant.
2. Debit entries initiated by another bank - we have no way to know which client authorized the entry, so if we are on notice of the death of one of them, it seems like they should be returned with an R15 code. Or, are we still protected by the warranty by the ODFI even though we have notice of death?
3.Credit entries we initiate - I think we have to stop them if we are debiting an outside account owned by the decedent or any account if the authorization only came from the decedent. Allow if suriving client authorizes.
4.Credit entries initiated by another bank. Not at all sure what to do. I think we have to return if it was a benefits payment to the decedent. Otherwise, maybe accept the payment but restrict the funds until an executor is appointed?

Would you do anything differently if the account did not have rights of survivorship?

I appreciate thoughts anyone has on this. Perhaps we're making this too complicated, but we are trying to write automated rules and manage our risk, but not unecessarily inconvenience clients.

Honestly - for some reason - this entered my head last night and I thought about my own situation. I have several EFTs automatically coming out of my joint account with my husband. If something happened to me and you stopped those his power would be shut off - along with his cell phone and cable.

I would echo what rlcarey and Skittles mentioned.

We avoid posting ACH credits once we know the receiver is deceased (if they are in the deceased name). The sender of the credit may have directives on who should benefit from that credit, and whether they receive the full amount of that credit.

If there are ACH credits in the decedent's name, they should be returned R15. For debits, I'd tread very carefully if it's a joint account with survivorship rights. As noted, if you shut off the lights or gas by bouncing one of those debits based on the death of one of the owners, you could be doing some explaining to the survivor when he or she has to fight to get the utility back.

All the more reason to make a quick but respectful connection with the survivor to sort things out before taking action.

Same question, but on individual account. Same answer.

The difference here is there is a customer who is in a position to monitor the activity immediately after the death. Evaluate the credits, but managing the debits is not your job...