cwilliams: I definitely agree.
If mom wants to change daughter's status from joint owner (ie. daughter can w/draw from the acct now [subject to any reqrment for all signatures while the CD isnt in maturity]) to POD (ie. daughter cant w/draw until mom has died), then I view this as a change not just in the title of the acct, but also a change in the ownership of the acct. I would re-issue the CD instrument.
As to your last point, I agree if what you were told is that the owner of an individual acct can designate more than 1 POD beneficiary. If you were told that 1 or more of the joint owners can also name a POD beneficiary, I disagree and doubt that state law would permit this. Here's why.
In order to create a valid joint acct, the parties have to create their interest in the acct at the same time. If a joint owner designates a POD beneficiary, the surviving joint owner and the POD beneficiary receive their interests in the acct at different times (the surviving owner at the time the acct is titled as joint and the POD beneficiary at the time the other owner dies).
I dont know of any state law that would permit a joint acct w/a POD beneficiary, w/1 exception.
I have assumed that the acct is held as joint tenants w/right of survivorship. You could also have an acct held jointly as tenants in common (I think this is, by and large, unusual for deposit accts, but it is certainly possible and happens all the time w/real estate). If an acct is held as tenants in common (ie. if there are 2 owners each owns 50%; 3 owners 33 1/3%, etc.), I think state law would permit a joint owner to designate a POD beneficiary as to the portion of the acct (ie. 50%, 33 1/3%, etc.) that the owner owns.
In a joint tenants w/right of survivorship acct, each owner owns all of the acct at the same time. This is why a POD beneficiary designation is incompatible with joint ownership (because, upon death, the surviving owner gets what she always had, all of the acct and there's no interest of the deceased owner to give to the POD beneficiary).
Sorry for the length of this post [I wanted to try and be thorough] and my delay in responding (very busy the last 2 days].
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