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Mother died at age 96, Nov. 24th. The bank informed me today that her November soc. sec. check had to be returned, so they took it out of my bank account.

LOL. Mother is not on that account. I closed her account. The balance was "payable on death" to me and I opened a new account. The law is what it is, but I just thought that others should know this.

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Chicago, this has been discussed on this site many times. For others, here is an excerpt from the social security site. If you enter social security payments into the site's search box, you will get lot's of discussions.

~~~ If the deceased was receiving Social Security benefits, you must return the benefit received for the month of death or any later months. For example, if the person dies in July, you must return the benefit paid in August. If received by direct deposit, contact the bank or other financial institution and ask them to return any funds received for the month of death or later. If paid by check, do not cash any checks received for the month the person dies or later. Return the checks to Social Security as soon as possible. However, eligible family members may be able to receive death benefits for the month the beneficiary died.
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Sorry. Yes, I understand all of that. I just thought it was odd, that the small town bank took it out of my account. I was laughing about this particular bank. Sorry that I was misunderstood.
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Yes, Chicago, I agree that this is odd. Evidently the small town bank didn't want to have a dispute with the feds. They seem to have overstepped a bit taking money out of an account in your name only. I wonder what would have happened if you had just taken the account funds out and not opened a new account?
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Sometimes banks can pull the money from accounts by mistake, too. If your mother died in Nov, the check received in Nov should not have been clawed back. The one received in early Dec would have been the check to take back if it had been received. There are a lot of mistakes made and from what I've read, they can be hard to work out because a lot of workers are confused about what check is returned. Wish that banks and SS workers would get all this straight, instead of going by what they believe to be true.
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Chicago - sorry on the loss of your mom, the first Christmas after death is really hard. my mom too died early last year. Her SS got clawed back in about 3 weeks & her retirement at about 8 weeks. The account was POD to me. But what I have done is left the account open & active (& using the existing checks) but tied to my SS# & use it as the estate account. it's a way to have a separate account to do pay (& track) estate & probate costs without going to get a new IRS EIN
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Grrr, hit post accidentally. So the old account morphed into this with no issues. It was a easy & seamless. And since it was an old account, I have existing checks and the service charge is keyed to what it was set at from ages ago @ $4.00 a month! For others reading this, continuing to keep a pod account open could be a way to make probate or post death costs easier to manage.
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Igloo, what is this IRS EIN? We do have our Dad's accounts set up POD, and that does make sense to me to continue to use this account post death as the estate account! Good information!
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Stacey - my understanding on this is that if you (as executor) have to open up a new bank account to have a estate account as your doing probate, you will need to get a a IRS estate identification number. You can't use moms old SS# as she's dead. But if it's a pod to you, you just keep it open but tied to your SS#. My mom was on hospice (18 mos), and really I knew it was just a matter of time. I went to the bank (a somewhat smaller but monied community bank) before she died to see what to do and the bank officer suggested just to leave it as set up but updated to put in my SS#. Bank knew of death within days too. For the account, basically nothing changed as statements read the same & still mailed to me. What is nice is that if you get a check for something in their name, it gives you a place to deposit it with no issues. Like a $ 25 check for that done in 1985 deposit from the water company....

I'm in probate phase. And it's really been nice to have all estate costs getting paid from 1 account to pay & track administration costs. Also as you still have the back history available online, you can check to see payments made years before just in case someone files a claim or sends a invoice on a long ago paid bill.
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Thanks Igloo! Probate, is still something I'm confused about, but I'll tackle that when the time comes. I will read up on it though, but I don't believe we will have to involved in this.
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