Florida Pay On Death Bank Account Appeal pits personal representative against probate beneficiaries: November 24, 2015 1st DCA opinion

Bank accounts are popular in Florida estate plans.  Most Florida residents from Boca Raton to Jupiter Island have a number ofbank accounts and financial accounts.  Florida estate lawyers often suggest, or use, pay on death or POD, or beneficiary designations to pass bank accounts to chosen beneficiaries.  These Totten Trusts or survivor accounts are a big source of estate lawsuits for Florida probate litigation law firms.  Here is a Florida Pay On Death probate appeal from the 1st District Court of Appeal issued November 24, 2015.  The name of the case is Keul v. Hodges Blvd. Presbyterian Church, In Re: Estae of Aiko Okamua Lampp and here is the link to read this opinion:https://edca.1dca.org/DCADocs/2015/0135/150135_DC05_11242015_104831_i.pdf. Whether you are a Florida probate lawyer, the personal representative of an estate, or someone who was named on a bank account, you may want to read this Florida appeals court opinion. 

Who Inherits the Florida Bank Account, the Estate or the Name on the Account?

• If you are a Florida trust lawyer, you often suggest to your clients that they retitle assetsin the name of their living trust, also called a revocable trust
• A revocable trust is a non probate asset or entity which passes to the beneficiaries outside or Palm Beach probate
• But be cautious, there are Florida estate laws which require the trustee of the revocable trust to pay the debts, obligations and expenses of administration of the deceased person and the probate
• Another way to pass assets outside of Palm Beach probate is by the use of beneficiary designations
• Naming a beneficiary of your IRA, retirement plan, or life insurance policy are common ways to leave an inheritance outside of probate
• Now, understand that if you are a named beneficiary of such an asset, you may get a letter from some estate lawyer in Florida who is running the probate, asking you for that money back
• There are reasons, under any number of possible scenarios, why that money may need to be returned to the Florida estate and you may want to consider hiring your own probate litigation law firm West Palm Beach to deal with such a letter or demand

Can The Beneficiary Be Changed by Undue Influence in Florida?

• With bank accounts, in Florida there are so called “estate accounts” or convenience accounts which are bank accounts which may have someone else’s name on it, but which goes to the estate when the owner dies, not to the named beneficiary
• Likewise, Florida estate attorneys understand that just because a bank account saysjoint tenant with right of survivorship, does not mean that the joint tenant or person whose name is on the account automatically inherits the Florida bank account
• Confusing?
• That’s why there are so many published appellate opinions on inheriting a Florida bank account
• Who inherits the Florida bank account if your name is on the statement but the probate wants the money?
• This is a fact pattern in this recent Florida probate case where a personal representative of a Florida estate was ordered by the probate court judge to return to the estate funds distributed from bank accounts
• The bank accounts of the deceased person were payable on death accounts or Florida POD accounts
• There are a lot of Florida POD account lawsuits by probate attorneys in Florida
• The personal representative or executor of the probate distributed to herself and her son and her daughter money from a bank account which was a payable on death Florida bank account
• The probate court in Florida invalidated the pay on death feature of the bank account on the grounds that the POD designation was procured through undue influence
• Undue influence is a form of fraud under Florida estate law and a way to set aside a will  or a trust, or a bank account or beneficiary desigation
• Undue influence is a common cause of action or legal remedy or legal set of facts argued by Florida probate lawyers when an inheritance was wrongfully created
• In this case, find out why the appeals court in Florida upheld and affirmed the probate court and why a POD designation may be set aside or invalidated upon undue influence, by reading the 1st DCA opinion.