Hey Y'all,
My mom passed away and we never had the best of relationships nor the closest, but with my dad out of the picture its all up to me. I already took care of the planning, funeral, change of address, last wishes, will, etc etc and lasts things last….finances.
I have access to her personal bank account and have already transferred everything over, but is there anyway to see if she had an investment account (doubtful) , 401k, retirement, or anything else outside of her personal banking? i know she was receiving SS checks every month of about $1,000. but thats all i know.
i want to make sure im not leaving anything on the table,
Thanks in Advance!!
Mom passed away – anyway to check for other bank accounts?
byu/No_Lie5768 inpersonalfinance
Posted by No_Lie5768
14 Comments
i should add:
i have a signed Power of Attorney, her Social Security number and card, her driver licenses, access to email, phone, Release of body form from hospital, everything.
There is no centralized resource. She likely would have received emails or mail from any bank she had a relationship with. Also, if you look at the bank statements for the account you know about, you can see if there are any deposits from other banks or transfers to other banks.
Check abandoned property website with your state.
May her soul rest in peace 🙏 well definitely she’s got another account with alota funds in it
Take a look at her tax returns. If she didn’t save copies, you can get a tax return transcript or a copy of the return from the IRS. If she had interest, it should show up there. If she had an investment account, dividends should show up there. Contributions and distributions from retirement accounts will show up, although if a retirement account had no activity in a particular year it might not generate any tax documents.
Go to IRS.gov, pull a transcript, you’ll see the 1099s from last year, everywhere she had significant assets will almost certainly generate a 1099
Banks use ChexSystems. You can ask her bank to do that.
I’ve dealt with several estates recently, and curated a tidy list of resources to help find assets.
Unclaimed Retirement Benefits (e.g. 401k)
https://www.pbgc.gov/wr/find-unclaimed-retirement-benefits
Nationwide search for forgotten bank accounts, by name (leads you to each state’s site)
https://unclaimed.org
US Treasury and Savings bond search
https://www.treasurydirect.gov/savings-bonds/treasury-hunt/
Life insurance locator, NAIC
(they will contact beneficiaries)
https://eapps.naic.org/life-policy-locator/#/welcome
Retirement benefits
https://lostandfound.dol.gov
Good luck!
Any 401(k) or capital gains from unsheltered accounts would be on her taxes. If she had a Roth IRA that one’s gonna be a little bit harder to track down, you should pull her entire banking record, and all of her credit card payments to see what accounts were paying what, do that with any other accounts you find, should dead end pretty quickly.
You can contact the PBGC to find out of she had any pension plans you don’t know of. [https://www.pbgc.gov/about/contact](https://www.pbgc.gov/about/contact)
Also, usually banks are notified by the executor if somebody dies. But sometimes they get the information from the SS Death index. You will want to check the lost money search websites under her name if they pop up there.
As someone that was an executor of an estate recently, you rely on checking their mail, email and phone records. Another option is to check their purse/wallet. If they have cards in there, that can help get you on the path.
In my experience, banks won’t talk to you unless you are a beneficiary or a court-recognized executor (you get a notarized letter declaring you so).
In nearly all cases, I didn’t even need account numbers to assets to the proper will-designated beneficiaries.
It is a lot of sleuthing, to be sure.
One thing you can do – and it is questionable at best, but probably ethically ok IF you would be the executor (given what you said, I think you are next of kin): If you have access to her mailbox, collect the mail. If not, get it forwarded. You’ll need to use the deceased CC though to make that happen. Theoretically you are supposed to wait until you are appointed as executor.
Another option is to utilize their phone if you can unlock it. That will allow you to see if they had text messages for 2FA keys from banks and whatnot. And you can use that information to figure out how to contact.
Sorry about your mom and good luck.
A Financial Professional can access a database to check to see if she has retirement or pension accounts.
You have access to her email? Search for “quarterly report” or something along those lines.