My father passed away and his money market and checking account were set up as POD, payable upon death, to me and my brother and sister. Before we even got back from his funeral, they froze his account and said they would not honor any checks written against the account, even if they were written before his death. We went to the Bank of America to close out these accounts. They said it would take XXXX business days to get our money. We had just come from another commercial bank and it took us XXXX minutes to close the account and get our money. So, we got into a long discussion on why it took so long to get the account closed. I had talked on the phone with Bank of America XXXX days before we went in. They said if we presented a Death Certificate and signed papers the branch bank would cut us checks. Never happened and after talking to several different people with several different answers, the time period for getting the checks esculated to XXXX weeks! We left the bank without any resolve to our situation. So each FDIC bank can make up their own rules on when someone can get their money. Either Bank of America is breaking the law, or the Banking sector has no real hard and fast rules for protecting customer rights to their money. What good is a Payable on Death account if the Bank of American can make you jump through infinite hoops to try and get your money? 
