My 90-year old mother passed away in October 2023. My brother and I (60 and 58) are 50/50 beneficiaries of her IRAs. All of her 2023 RMDs were taken, either by her or by the two of us for one of her accounts. We have been working through each financial provider’s process for taking possession of the inherited IRA assets. We are aware we fall under the newer “10-year rule” for completing all RMDs for these inherited IRAs.

We know our own RMDs need to start in 2024. However, we are unclear about whether the providers will distribute RMDs BEFORE each company transfers our inherited assets to us, or if they will simply give us until 2024 year-end to take RMDs on our schedule.

So our questions are: Are the providers going to treat the IRAs as if they were still our mother’s and force us to first take 2024 RMDs based on her age before transferring the remaining assets to us? (Obviously these RMDs would be larger if based our mother’s age rather than on our ages). If providers do this, is this due to IRS rules, or is it just based on individual financial institutions’ policies?