My Brother was on my fathers bank accounts. My father died and I want to know if my fathers bank accounts now belong to my brother. I know t...

Question

My Brother was on my fathers bank accounts. My father died and I want to know if my fathers bank accounts now belong to my brother. I know that is not what my father wanted. H left a will that stated all assets be divided between all my brothers and sisters. My brother said someone told him that the money is his now because his name was on the account. He never contributed any money to these accounts. He and I are executors of his will.

Answer

First of all, if you are an executor, you should NOT be online. You should not have done anything until you retained a lawyer.

The joint bank accounts, if they are in fact joint (and not just an additional signature) have ALWAYS belonged to your brother. In setting them up, your father signed papers to that effect and knew that. He made a deliberate (and common) decision to take that asset out of his estate and give it to your brother before he died. While you may not believe that's fair, it is the legal decision your father made, and as executor you have a duty to enforvce it (and you violate your legal duty when you question it).

Do NOT do anything until you hire an estate lawyer. That means do not carry the will to court, distribute anything, etc.

Answer

The rule regarding joint bank accounts generally is that money in the account when one person dies goes to the other person. The exception might be where there is not enough money in the estate to pay creditors. In such casee, the money in the account goes back to the estate. Otherwise, your brother gets the funds.

You don't know what your father wanted. You also did not do anything special to earn the money so there is no reason why you or your siblings should get it rather than your brother. It may be that he helped your father pay bills and it was done for this reason. Or maybe your father and brother had other reasons. They did not have to convey them to you.

I don't know when your father died, but if you and your brother are co-executors, then you had best get along and both decide on a probate lawyer in the county/state where your father resided at time of death and have the lawyer assist in probating the estate.