Jointly owed accounts after death

Illinois resident...My grandmother just passed recently. She had 2 sons and 5 accounts, all of which are jointly owned, and do not fall under the will, which does state that everything is to be divided 50/50. My father (brother 2), who is not the executor, only had access to 2 accounts. Brother 1, and his wife are joint owners on 3 accounts which total almost $80,000. The accounts my father (brother 2) were on were valued about $47,000. The 2 accounts we have access to were worded as brother 1 or brother 2. Brother 2 withdrew the money from those 2 accounts. There has been a feud for the last 20 years, and brother 1 has made it very clear to brother 2 that he will not get a dime. So, brother 2 closed the 2 accounts that he had access to, since the wording was "OR". Can brother 1 now sue for half of the money in those 2 accounts? We do know that we cannot sue for half of the $80,000, since our name was not on the accounts.

This sounds like family feud. As you will wind up in biter litigation, regardless, get an Illinois lawyer involved now.

A clever lawyer may be able to come up with a strategy based on the facts, such as an implied 50-50 trust on all proceeds in all the joint accounts, and as a compromise your side will agree not to claim 50% of the larger sum if he agrees not to claim 50% of the smaller, but I think without that your side can't take the jointly held money and run.

I agree with ALawyer. Actually, there *may* be an argument that you can make to claim a share of the joint accounts that your father was not listen on. The argument would be that the joint accounts (probably all of them) were merely "convenience" accounts and that your gm did not have donative intent when he created them. This is a highly fact-intensive argument and is the source of many court battles.

The second argument with regard to the joint accounts that your dad was on would be that upon your gm's death, the joint tenancy was severed and became a tenancy in common of which your dad had an undivided 1/2 interest. In the alternative, ALawyer's argument of an implied trust or maybe a constructive trust may also be useful.

If your dad might be interested in representation, fell free to contact me -- my website is http://www.illinoisestateplan.com

By the way, if any assets are in gm's sole name, they will pass under gm's will, or if she has none, by state law. If that is the case, you dad is equally entitled to be the estate rep. and may benefit from doing so and brining the petition himself.

Jointly owned accounts after death

Thank you both for your reply. This was very helpful. Grandma didn't have anything soley in her name. At least that we are aware of. Brother #1 wiped out her place of all bank books, certificates of deposits and such, hours after her death. From what we have found out so far, the only thing that passes under her will are the assets within her condo.

We did speak to one attorney recently, who told us that we had no case, and would have to return 50% of the money to the other brother. Well, needless to say, I was not happy about that and have not contacted him further. This scared my parents, who does not have it in them to fight, and they withdrew half of the money and turned it into a cashier's check for them. We were able to talk them out of giving it to the other brother, and are having the check reversed. As of today, they have turned over power of attorney to my husband and I to take care of all areas of the grandmother's estate for my father's portion.

Illinoisestateplan: As we live in the same metropolitian area as your office, I may contact you to discuss further.

Thank you both!

I also have one other question in regards to her condo. This was left in trust to both brothers. Can you tell me about partition? It has been more than enough to time list the property with the realtor. Apparently, they are wanting to repaint and get the condo ready before listing. They will not allow us to help because brother 1 is 'EXECUTOR'. He loves that term. He doesn't seem to get it that he is not executor over the property in trust. They want to do it themselves so that they can charge themselves for the work to get more money out of it. When can we, if necessary, file for a partition? And what exactly does this mean for us? I know that we would be separting ourselves from the condo, but how is this divided?

You are right, an 'executor' does not control or manage property held in a trust - that is the function of the trustee of the trust. Of course, he may also be trustee, you didn't mention.

A partition is a court order that essentially separates and divides up various interests in real estate. If the two brothers were each given 1/2, then the partition would simply divide up the property in half and each brother would have exclusive ownership of their 1/2 and interest would pass under theor own wills (or trusts). The obvious disadvantage of a partition is that it greatly reduces the marketability of the property. Purchasers generally want to buy exclusive ownership, and not own their property with a stranger. Partition may besomething to consider, but probably should be considered a last resort.