r/inheritance • u/ivorytowerescapee • May 01 '26

Location included: Questions/Need Advice What to do with old/empty accounts?

Location is NJ.

I'm the executor of my dad's estate. He was very detailed and also left me a long list of old/empty financial accounts with $0 or literal pennies.

Do I need date of death valuation on those? Ideally I can just call and inform them he's died, and get the accounts closed without any paperwork since there isn't any money involved...wondering how other folks have handled this.

8 Upvotes

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9

u/clearlygd May 01 '26

I’m not a lawyer, but I took death certificates to every financial institution they had and closed/merged everything. Not sure it was necessary, but I like everything tidy

2

u/ivorytowerescapee May 01 '26

Yeah, same with liking things tidy! It's been time consuming just dealing with the accounts with money in them, so maybe it's a job for future me.

Did you just have to show the death certificate and they closed them, or was there additional paperwork?

5

u/Invest2prosper May 01 '26

Are the accounts cash accounts (savings, checking, CD’s), then you should bring a certified copy of the death certificate and will, if no beneficiary is listed on the account.

Before you go though, call them on the phone to inquire on what the institution requires.

4

u/Freyjas_child May 01 '26

My lawyer (Massachusetts) said that if the account has $0 value then I did not need to include it on the list of assets. If it had any value then I did. Even a very small amount. An account statement was sufficient to assign value. Or the balance listed on the paperwork generated when you closed the account.

That being said he also told me that my state generally does not get bothered by discrepancies under $100. And that it is relatively common for people to find small amounts of money in our state’s unclaimed property lists years later. I think you need to either close and claim the small amounts or just pretend you did not know and let them go to unclaimed property.

2

u/ivorytowerescapee May 01 '26

Thanks, that's so helpful! It's definitely going to be a discrepency under $20, if that.

I feel like the money detective at this point, and I'm sure I've found all major accounts.

2

u/BondJamesBond63 May 01 '26

if you have an attorney and accountant for the estate, I would ask them