My male mc dies and the female mc continues to live in what was his house. Twenty five years after his death the house is emptied and sold, at this point details of a bank account are found. This account was never dealt with at the time of his death because no one knew this account existed until the house clearance. Could a bank account that has never been used in over twenty years still be considered by the bank a live/active account? If it is considered by the bank as active would it have continued to earn interest? Anyone know the legal position or where might find out? The story in question is set in Canada.
In the US, the rules vary by state, but usually the bank has to report the account and transfer the money to the state's escheatment authority after three to five years of inactivity. The original account holder then has a number of years to reclaim the money, before it is forfeited to the state.
If someone dies, the moment the bank finds out, their accounts are frozen and their assets go to probate, either to be divided according to their will by an executor, or however provincial says the assets are to be taken care of. When it comes to bank, the bank will mark an account as inactive after 12 months of no activity. After another 12 months it becomes dormant. After 3-5 years, the funds may be turned over to The Crown. After the accounts marked active or dormant, the account holder has to show up in person at a branch to get it reactivated. This could probably be avoided if your character had, for whatever reason, set up an anonymous shell company (not too difficult to do in Canada), opened a couple of bank accounts, and set up a series of automated transactions between them, but how the banks would treat that and how the surviving family members would gain access to them is a little outside my ken.
There is no shell company to move out the money to or from. Several items that originally belonged to my MC are found in the house, one of which is documents about a bank account. I seam to have written a problem. I now need to figure out a reason why t this character has come back to his hometown.
What about bearer/savings bonds. Bearer bonds wouldn't be a problem if the original purchaser passed away, though I'm not sure if companies in Canada are legally obligated to redeem them anymore. Savings bonds, depending on the institute, may allow the bond to reach maturity after the original investors death. Depending on the term and terms, the institution and the will, they could still be valid and the funds attainable.
Here's a rundown of what happens if an account goes dormant in the UK. https://www.moneyexpert.com/current-account/dormant-bank-accounts/ Interesting thing ...apparently you will always be able to recover the money, as long as you can offer proof of identity, etc.
