I already created a post awhile back about my father passing and helping my mother have all of my father's assets transferred into her name.
Well we are having a problem with Merrill Lynch right now and I need some advice. About 5 years ago my father inherited a decent sum of money from my grandmother (his mom), which was in a trust for him and his sister. He kept that money with ML and converted it into his own trust. My sister helped my mother with this in the beginning so I'm not exactly sure what was discussed, but ML is converting this over to another trust in my mother's name. And they are seriously giving her the run around. They've sent paperwork that has been filled out and sent back twice, and they claim they haven't received it. It was even sent back in a pre-addressed, and prepaid UPS envelope that they included. Ten days after sending in my Power of Attorney, they told me they still hadn't received it, even though it was also sent UPS. And I recently got a letter letting me know that the POA was rejected because my mother still didn't have an account and it was still in my father's name. They claim they still need the death certificate and the paperwork, which have already been sent twice. And oh yeah. This is from my father's investment "adviser" who is located in Florida, 1500 miles away.
Sorry for the rant, but I am pissed. I know they are churning his money (probably something he agreed to), because they made sales in December, after his death. They also have him invested in about 20 different sector etfs, which add up to a good portion of the S&P, so the separate purchase make no sense. All I want to do is get my mother's money out of there and over to Vanguard.
I'm not an expert at this stuff, so my question is this. Does she have to convert the account into her name? Or after they actually receive the death certificate, can we just liquidate everything and have them send us a check which we can then send to Vanguard? Or do we have to get the account in her name and then work with Vanguard to transfer the money over? Can we eliminate my father's adviser and send the paperwork somewhere else to get this taken care of? This lady is seriously pissing me off with her claims to having not received the paperwork.