Trustee authority for designated IRA
I am the trustee and personal representative (executor) of an estate containing multiple IRAS with named designated beneficiaries.
Do I have the authority to merely view the account balances, beneficiaries and amounts distributed to whom?
The brokerage says no; my attorney says I do have the right to view ALL accounts as the trustee, personal representative and holder of the durable power of attorney.
The information is important in making other decisions about the estate.
Thanks for any help on this. I am not a lawyer or accountant.
Permalink Submitted by Alan - IRA critic on Thu, 2021-12-23 16:32
I assume that the IRA owner has already passed. As such, the POA is no longer valid and IRA accounts for which there are named beneficiaries other than the estate or yourself are not part of the probate estate, and you have no legal access to those accounts unless there is a statute in your state that provides this authority. That said, if there is a federal or state estate tax return required, you will need to know the value of those accounts, account numbers and the IRA custodians on the DOD to prepare the return, so that info should be provided to you. The IRA custodians should have a procedure or form for requesting this info, but that will not tell you who the beneficiary is on those accounts. Or you might secure this info from any cooperative beneficiary who wants to share data on their inherited IRAs so that you can better coordinate estate decisions including any disclaimer decisions. If your attorney is aware of more specifics they should provide a citation for you to give to the IRA custodians.