My friend received a check from the insurance company payable to the estate of his grandma. The check was her grandma's part of the settlement of a car accident in November 2006. However, her grandma passed away on 3-31-07.

The check needs to be deposited into her grandma's estate account. He would like to know how he can get the document to open an estate account.

The trustee of the estate needs to open up the account ( actually there should have been one opened after her death for all of her personal money be put into.

I'm sorry that you did not like FR_Chuck's response, but I believe his information was correct. Someone is responsible for handling all of the Grandmother's assests post-death to make sure that her wishes are carried out, debts handled, etc. The trustee or executor or administrator for the estate would be the person with the authority to do that.

I don't know of any state with different laws in that regard.

If your friend IS the executor, I'd start with an attorney or if that is not possible, with the IRS for a Tax ID number.

You don't say what State your friend's grandmother lived in and whether she had a will and if she had a will, who the executor of the estate is as listed in her will. If she passed away "intestate" or without a will, then the State she lived in more than likely has laws who designate who the heirs are, i.e. if she left a surving spouse, then the estate passes to him, if she had two children, they would normally share and share alike in the estate, and so on down the line to perhaps her grandson if he should be the only surviving heir. I would recommend an atty be consulted as probate laws vary from State to State and there may be other "estate" matters which need to be tended to but a simple reading of her will, if she had a will, will normally tell you whom she named as exector. If she passed with no will, then the Probate Court of the county will entertain a Petition for Letters of Administration from someone who normally would be closely related to his grandmother, and this is when he especially will need an attorney.

Hello L:

You've made an assumption that there IS a document such as you request. When you were told there isn't, you didn't like it. That kind of stuff isn't going to help you much.

Maybe you would like to put your listening ears on.

excon

Yes, I guess I could have made up some legal sounding name and told them to go find that.

But for example when my aunt passed away, we got ( by phone) an EIN number went down to the bank and told them we needed to open up a estate account, gave them the EIN number and that was it.
But the actuall issue is if you are authorised to open the account, merely being a relation is not legal grounds, if you are not the correct one to do it.
The bank of course may want to see a probate court order, or they may want to see a copy of the will to prove you have that authority, in my case of a town of 5000 it was because they knew us personally.

I'm currently dealing with opening as estate account (NJ area) too. A major bank said I'd need two forms of ID, letter of testamentary (from probate court which my oned one's lawyer is handling) and the death certificate. Next I've got to check out an accountant to ask other questions before I dole out the cash to other family members as stated in the Will. Folks want me to hurry, but I have to dot all "i"s and "t"s to CMA.

I am also going through the same thing in New Jersey. There should have been an estate account set up if grandma had any assets when she died. This would have been done shortly after the death. First you must go to you surrogate in your county with the will if you are the executor with a copy of the death certificate. Then you get appointed by the county as is stated in the will. At this point you can set up an estate account which has an EIN # just like a business would.