What happens to funds if passaway without will my wife and I both have monzo but separate account’s ?
Hey Pinny,
If anything should happen to you (or your wife) your next of kin can contact our customer support team to start the process of retrieving the funds from your account.
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Can you confirm that the account would be frozen until probate is granted? This is the number one reason I can’t move to Monzo, because I’m the one who is paid, if I died my wife would have no access to funds. So we have to keep our current joint account for now…
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As Monzo isn’t a joint account, it probably would have to be frozen until the grant of representation is issued. It would be illegal for Monzo to allow access to another account, especially when ownership can become disputed on death. It would be good for Monzo to clarify this.
@Chapuys Is correct, we wouldn’t be able to grant your wife access to the account until we had the proper legal documentation had been sent through confirming your (hypothetical) death and that she had been given control of your affairs.
We are however hoping to introduce joint accounts over the coming year!
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Needs adding to the Trello roadmap?
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I would quibble the ‘have to’. If the amount in the account isn’t significant, it’s possible that a bank can and will move forward without asking for probate when the executor is also next of kin. Proper legal documentation in this case could be little more than the executor providing a copy of the death certificate.
Very pleased to hear that Monzo are hoping to introduce joint accounts, though. Having a joint account with a livable sum in it helps an incredible amount when trying to sort out any other accounts, especially if any of them take longer by requesting probate.
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In fairness, banks usually allow the person who is dealing with the estate to close it under £50,000. Usually this is the next of kin however if the next of kin isn’t specified as the person to deal with the estate, they shouldn’t be closing the account/transfering money.
Take Barclays as an example, their bereavement guide states:
Any Sole accounts held by the person who died will be frozen within 24 hours until the balance can be settled and funds forwarded to the executor or other identified beneficiary. The account will then be closed.
They do state that they do not need to usually see evidence for accounts with less than £50,000 in it, but it still needs to be the person dealing with the estate or defined as the beneficiary. Barclays reserves the the right to request a grant of probate or other evidence for accounts with less than £50,000 in them.
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Point taken; I had assumed ‘executor = next of kin’ for the discussion, given the OP, but I have edited my post now to make that clearer.
While Barclays wasn’t one of the banks I’ve had any dealings with in this context, I can say that I’ve known Natwest and Santander to settle accounts without requesting probate.
I guess it is this sticky legalese which needs to be clarified as a policy with Monzo. It would also be nice for there to be a named person at Monzo who deals with bereavement issues with customer accounts.
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I think there might be certain COPS who any queries about these issues get escalated to, as when I had to contact Monzo about something similar my query was dealt with by someone who I much later discovered, through the forum, was a senior staff member with certain broad items under his remit.
(Apols for being vague; partially this is because I don’t want to give any misinformation as my experience was a while ago now so I don’t want to assume it’d be the same for anyone else now)
After writing the about, it occured to me to search for “Monzo bereavement” and I found the following forum post from last month: When I die
Haven’t read through all of it yet, though it does confirm that so far they’ve been dealing with such queries on a case-by-case basis. It does also suggest they need a page on their website, as putting almost any other bank name in that search results with a page somewhere on their website with either a form to fill in or useful contact information.
You can’t have a rigid rule for the whole UK due to legislative differences between the various countries making up the UK. While users have spoken about Probate, there is no such thing in Scotland. Confirmation in Scotland, or probate in England and Wales, is the process by which the validity of the deceased’s will (if one exists) is determined.
Scottish Law applies to the estates of people who die and are domiciled in Scotland, for example having your main residence / family home in Scotland.
There are also various Differences Between England & Scotland Wills including:
• Marriage does not invalidate a previous Will as it does in England & Wales. Meaning that making a new Will after a second marriage is essential.
• A Testator or Testatrix must sign the bottom of EACH page of the Will. When signing the Will, witnesses must identify themselves fully with at least their address and ideally with their occupation as well.
• By making a special handwritten statement, it’s possible to sign a Will in Scotland without any witnesses present or for the witnesses to also be beneficiaries.
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