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I have Power of Attorney and am executor of Dad's estate. He has a will but he also signed Pay on Death papers for everything but his house and truck. Can I transfer his home and truck apart from the will? I want to use the Pay on Death papers and Power of Attorney as much as possible and avoid the hassles of using the will. Can I still sign and deposit checks made out to him using the Power of Attorney? Can I transfer ownership of his home and truck using the Power of Attorney? Can I change the Pay on Death papers using Power of Attorney?

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The power of attorney ended with his death and you can no longer sign anything as POA. As his executor you will need to change his accounts to estate accounts and pay his outstanding bills from that, signing as executor. Will you be needing to probate his estate? Perhaps you should seek guidance from your attorney.
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geercom, the POD accounts shouldn't require anything beyond a death certificate to transfer to the beneficiary. It will not have to go into an estate account, because it will not have to go through probate. A purpose of POD is to avoid probate.

Things that are in his name, such as the car and house, will need to go through probate before title can be transferred. It is not a difficult thing to do, especially if you employ an attorney to probate the will.
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BTW, you can still sign his checks, but as the Personal Representative, i.e., the executor of the will. I am not quite sure of all legalities, but you may have to get your letters testimentary before you can sign as PR. Does anyone know if this is the case?
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You cannot touch the Pay on Death accounts once your father is deceased, unless you are the beneficiary on those accounts. POA ends upon death.
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Who is the beneficiary(s) of the POD accounts? I think they go directly to the beneficiaries...the house & truck goes thru probate (at least in my state) if they are over total value $50,000. Check your state's website, they may have some.helpful info there, if you need help . understanding it all, it's worth it to ask an attorney. Some will.give you a free consultation.
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Thank you everyone. In answer to your follow up questions: I plan to hire an attorney to address the issues you mention, including probating his estate, once the POD paperwork is activated using the death certificate. It will take a few weeks to get those, based on the speed of the doctor handling the paperwork, I am told. I will do this to take care of disposition of the truck and house, and to do the other things I will need to do as Personal Representative and Executor.

With reference to this response: "BTW, you can still sign his checks, but as the Personal Representative, i.e., the executor of the will. I am not quite sure of all legalities, but you may have to get your letters testimentary before you can sign as PR. Does anyone know if this is the case?", does anyone know when and how in the process I as executor become PR?

As for POD, my Dad gave one of the heirs her portion of the estate early, prior his death, with the understanding she would not receive anything else. She agreed to this verbally, but we will need to have her refuse any portion of the estate via POD or the will of her own accord as we did not make any official changes to either to reflect this in time before he passed. I am sure she will cooperate. But that was why I asked about making changes to POD now.

The beneficiaries are me, my sister, and my deceased brothers kids, each person or group getting one third. The truck and house are over $50K total value. What state website should I check on this for Ohio and what should I look for?
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geercom, it is actually all pretty simple. After the death certificates come you can have the will probated and everything else will make sense and fall in line. It may be that the house and car can pass with a simple muniment of title. That will save a lot of money. Your attorney will know about these things, so don't worry.
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When I was the Personal Representative for my late aunt's estate, the attorney took papers to the courthouse to have me appointed. Once I got the court papers I could access her safety deposit box and all of her bank accounts. Since her CDs were all POD, the bank just wrote checks directly to the beneficiaries and I mailed them. The bank is required to write these checks according to the POD designations, so I would think that the heir who has already received her share would need to reimburse the estate so that money could be redistributed to the remaining heirs.
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BTW, the executor is the PR. I forgot to answer that question.
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My niece passed away and since she was in the POD, I need her death certificate. Am I correct in understanding that anyone can purchase anyone's death certificate?
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Geercom, in my state, there is a form that must be filled out to request a birth, death or marriage certificate. It asks for your relationship to the person and the reason for the request. You have a valid reason for needing the death certificate. They ask these questions to try to cut down on identity fraud.
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One bank told me that POA supercedes the beneficiaries so I will have to use the will to get that divided up. Another financial institution had me listed as the only beneficiary. I had them make me out a check and put that into another account under my name at the same institution. My plan is to wait until any monies that can be transferred more easily via beneficiaries set up at the financial institutions or via POD/TOD paperwork are transferred, then go to an attorney with the will and have him work with what has not yet transferred. If the attorney can have what I got from the one institution count as a portion of my part, that will be the easiest. Otherwise we'll all get equal parts of what is left and I will make out checks from what I got to square up with everyone else.
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