At the beginning of this year my father passed away. I am the executor of his estate. He lived exclusively off of social security and had close to nothing saved other than some small amounts in checking and saving accounts. Fortunately, he also had few debts.
I was able to gain access to his accounts using a transfer by affidavit process and have paid off all of his bills using those monies. There is a few hundred dollars left now that all is settled.
Just recently, however, I’ve received a few checks totaling ~$2400 that are made out either to him or his estate. I’m having a hard time figuring out what to do with these. The bank that issued them was where he banked, and where I bank, but they will not cash them with the affidavit. They’ve said I need an estate account which is a type of account they don’t offer.
So I go to a bank that does offer estate accounts and they have said that they will not accept the affidavit to open an estate account, they need letters testamentary to open such account. Everything I’ve read however suggests this isn’t true and only applies to estates of more than $50k.
He died in WI if that matters and I’m located in another state. I don’t want to downplay the significance of this amount of money, certainly I would like to be able to cash these checks if possible. Yet I’ve also already spent a ton of time on this and I recognize that I’m reaching the point of getting little return for my efforts. If we were talking about even a slightly larger amount of money I would consult an attorney.
Anyone who has gone through something similar or any lawyers here? Any advice on the course of action I should take is appreciated.
