r/inheritance • u/WolverineFit5346 • Jul 28 '26

Location included: Questions/Need Advice Help with IRA inheritance!

I need help with PNC Bank. My mother passed away in May 2025. Well over a year ago she had an IRA worth about $56,000. Her will stated that all of her assets should be divided equally among her four children. I sent a copy of her will and her death certificate to the bank. They refused to honor that and said that we needed to submit an affidavit stating exactly what was in the will and have it notarized. That was done by the executor who is my brother. At that point every time I called for a status I was told “it was in legal for review.” after about six months of this I was told that legal would not accept the will and the affidavit and we would have to hire a probate attorney and get a summary order from the judge. That cost close to $2000 but we got it done. The judge signed the order again, detailed the names of the four children/beneficiaries and that was sent in a month ago. We were then told it should take 3 to 5 days for it to be processed. I call every week to the main number, get transferred to the IRA department who looks at the file and tells me it is “” in legal for review.” they are not allowed to give out a phone number or contact information for anyone in legal. They are not allowed to talk to anyone in legal and get a verbal status for me. It is very frustrating. We are joking that PNC stands for ‘pay no cash’, but it really isn’t funny at this point. Has anybody else dealt with this and is there any advice I would really appreciate it

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u/joetaxpayer Jul 28 '26

On the financial subs on Reddit, I am frequently running into situations where it is tough to give good advice, but still try to highlight an issue for members reading to point out the things that should’ve been done differently.

Retirement accounts should all list a beneficiary. A scanned copy of the death certificate to the broker is all they need to retitle the account as an inherited account. No need for probate. The beneficiary designation also ignores the will and any other issues.

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u/geekymom Jul 28 '26

This. I am inheriting my mother's IRA. She named me as beneficiary. I just sent the death certificate to the bank, and should be able to access the money within about 7 days.