We have a situation where we have an open checking account titled in the name of a trust with husband and wife as trustees. Both husband and wife are now deceased and the daughter is transacting out of that account. We do not have any documentation as to who the successor trustee(s) if any. I would like to freeze that account to stop the daughter from transacting, until she can provide us with new documentation or at least the old trust showing her as successor trustee. Are there any regulatory things that I must do?

I would think at a minimum sending a letter addressed to the last address available (mail is probably being forwarded) stating that the account is frozen until a new certificate of trust can be provided and a TIN (assuming the original account was opened with the SSN of the husband or the wife). If you don't have the updated certificate, as far as you know the daughter is not entitled to those funds...

Just my thoughts, good luck!

Also, maybe this is a state reg, but I don't think so- make sure you don't request the actual trust. You can only request the new certificate of trust.

That's not a legal restriction, MittenCO, at least as far as I know. It's a practice adopted by a lot of banks to avoid being privy to the confidential portions of a trust document and perhaps being charged with that knowledge if something goes wrong later.

I agree w/John to that extent. The more knowledge you have of what is in the trust the more liability you have in honoring it. Not sure if I said that rightly. We just do the practice of having a trust authorization where it lists the trustees, successor trustees and beneficiaries. We do not keep a copy of the trust itself.

My question is how is the daughter transacting on the account? Was she originally on the account as a signatory? If not, regardless of whether she is a successor trustee or not, she has no legal rights to transact on the account at this point without providing the bank with proper documentation. If she is doing this without authority, the other beneficiaries are going to come after the bank.