Apple Demands Court Order To Access Dead Husband's Password

JustReason said:
Might I guess most of you aren't married? Does your significant other know that you don't truly give yourself whole and completely to them? Seriously she sounds like she may have been a decent enough wife to respect his privacy to not know his password. I don't know my wifes out of respect of hers but god forbid she passes before me I would like access to make sure nothing of note is there that could impact my finacials or maybe poics to remember her by, she love to take selfies.
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Does your other half have your work username and passwords or do you have hers? The issue here is that people use Google, Apple and other online cloud services for work and for personal. Apple or somebody else has no way to know if the account if one that is used for personal or for work. If it is for work, you other half has no right to have access to the account.

It is a horrible thing to think about but that is why keeping a list of your usernames and passwords somewhere so that upon your death your family can access your accounts is a good thing.
 
Exavior said:
Does your other half have your work username and passwords or do you have hers? The issue here is that people use Google, Apple and other online cloud services for work and for personal. Apple or somebody else has no way to know if the account if one that is used for personal or for work. If it is for work, you other half has no right to have access to the account.

It is a horrible thing to think about but that is why keeping a list of your usernames and passwords somewhere so that upon your death your family can access your accounts is a good thing.
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Sorry that is a silly excuse. If a company can't differentiate a personal or company account maybe they have other issues. That is either Apples for not flaging the accounts properly or what ever company is using personal Apple accounts for work related business.

Virtually EVERYTHING else in the world is transferable to a spouse or person assigned in a will.

Why would digital accounts be any different? I don't get why this is sooo different?

Security? A concern for sure but not a problem denying access just one of securing when to give access.

Even if you have a secret mistress account, after you die your wife can get access... tough shit, your dead who cares, you maybe should have used a different name or something. Same should be for digital accounts.
 
dandirk said:
Sorry that is a silly excuse. If a company can't differentiate a personal or company account maybe they have other issues. That is either Apples for not flaging the accounts properly or what ever company is using personal Apple accounts for work related business.
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Apple doesn't know what people are using the accounts for. How could they? I have multiple Apple IDs for work and home use, how does Apple determine which accounts have access to company assets and which don't? They can't.
 
Nolan7689 said:
I'm pretty sure apple and most others stand by digital goods being non transferable. It's sad they're taking a stand on this, but I am glad because at the same time it's good of them to take the stand against unlocking devices.
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Digital goods paid for by money should be part of a persons estate as is any other property. This is a new area of law that needs to get hammered out, and quick.

I also believe every person should be able to file a DNR for online accounts. If they die, the accounts die with them. Period.

Otherwise, they should be part of the estate.
 
Advil said:
If we want to make a firm legal stand that ALL passwords are joint property of a married couple, then let's do that..
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Well now, that is part of the issue isn't it. In most places, everything owned by the deceased is joint property, or is transferred if one dies, so the reality is that this is already covered by the law. The problem is that providers, ISPs etc, all want to be special. You seem to think that as well.

Any physical mail the old man had would be hers. No one swoops in and confiscates his correspondence upon his death. No one sues a widow when she discovers love letters from his secret love. Why would anyone put more importance on electronic communications then on physical written communications. It's asinine at the very least.

More and more businesses want people to use online resources for everything, it's cheaper, they want to do things that way for their own bottom line. There can be advantages for us as well, but it's business that really scores with the deal.

There was a time people said you couldn't do anything without credit, and a credit card has become damned important. Soon enough they will say you have to be able to do things online cause everything is being done online. It's not really true, but for many people, it's true enough already. My Doctor wanted me to create an account for some online service cause I had to go in and have a camera shoved up my ass, I refused, I felt I was already being fucked enough, but there it is. Businesses, and these service providers especially, need to get this figured out cause it's going to get stupid soon enough with the way they are acting over a simple idea that's thousands of years old and a bedrock of human rights.
 
xX_Jack_Carver_Xx said:
You don't even need a lawyer, any idiot can walk into District Court and file for a court ordered subpoena ... which is what Apple wants, to cover their own ass, since the PW effectively hands over property of value.

Hell, a lot of people have to go through this to get a full copy of their Credit reporting agency "FILE".
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In the US or Canada?
 
Koolthulu said:
She needs the Apple account password so she can download apps that her and her husband have already paid for. Basically Apple wants her to make a new account and pay for all the stuff again.
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Who paid for it is inconsequential. Who owns the account it was bound to is all that matters. She did not have access to the account before he died. Therefore, it was not her "property". That is her fault. I think Apple's policy of taking the legal route is fine. And it protects from phishing and impersonation.

Apple is not alone in this. The entire digital content economy is based on the exclusive relationship between the account holder and content provider. That is the entire foundation of the business model. Now I am just as much a critic of this because it denies our basic rights of the First Sale Doctorine, but that is the world that we live in.

Yes, the husband may have left "everything" to her when he died. But that account is still there just as ready to be used as it was before he died. The fact that he did not leave her the password is his oversight, not Apples.....he didn't leave her "everything" after all.

Are you people complaining about Apple not giving over the password, the same ones that bitch about the government giving subsidies to people who are too "dumb" to not be rich and successful?
 
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westrock2000 said:
Who paid for it is inconsequential. Who owns the account it was bound to is all that matters. She did not have access to the account before he died. Therefore, it was not her "property". That is her fault. I think Apple's policy of taking the legal route is fine. And it protects from phishing and impersonation.

Apple is not alone in this. The entire digital content economy is based on the exclusive relationship between the account holder and content provider. That is the entire foundation of the business model. Now I am just as much a critic of this because it denies our basic rights of the First Sale Doctorine, but that is the world that we live in.

Yes, the husband may have left "everything" to her when he died. But that account is still there just as ready to be used as it was before he died. The fact that he did not leave her the password is his oversight, not Apples.....he didn't leave her "everything" after all.

Are you people complaining about Apple not giving over the password, the same ones that bitch about the government giving subsidies to people who are too "dumb" to not be rich and successful?
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And I think you are wrong. She has to do nothing special to get the house, the car, the TV, his written mail, it's all hers unless he says differently, it's just automatic. Why do you want to insist that this is different?
 
Steve said:
Holy cow, a notarized death certificate, serial numbers of the devices and a copy of the husband's will is "nilly willy?"

Aside from dragging his corpse down to the Apple store, what else do you need to prove he's dead?
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I forgot about you and Apple.

I bet if you posted this article about Google doing this on an Android device you'd be all about it.
 
lcpiper said:
Well now, that is part of the issue isn't it. In most places, everything owned by the deceased is joint property, or is transferred if one dies, so the reality is that this is already covered by the law. The problem is that providers, ISPs etc, all want to be special. You seem to think that as well.

Any physical mail the old man had would be hers. No one swoops in and confiscates his correspondence upon his death. No one sues a widow when she discovers love letters from his secret love. Why would anyone put more importance on electronic communications then on physical written communications. It's asinine at the very least.

More and more businesses want people to use online resources for everything, it's cheaper, they want to do things that way for their own bottom line. There can be advantages for us as well, but it's business that really scores with the deal.

There was a time people said you couldn't do anything without credit, and a credit card has become damned important. Soon enough they will say you have to be able to do things online cause everything is being done online. It's not really true, but for many people, it's true enough already. My Doctor wanted me to create an account for some online service cause I had to go in and have a camera shoved up my ass, I refused, I felt I was already being fucked enough, but there it is. Businesses, and these service providers especially, need to get this figured out cause it's going to get stupid soon enough with the way they are acting over a simple idea that's thousands of years old and a bedrock of human rights.
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I still think there has to be some other agenda at play here ... the Apple ID site has a forgot your ID reset link (I don't want to reset my password to test it since I share an account with my sons) ... I am assuming that if she had access to all his accounts (including email) then she could easily switch the password ... IF she doesn't have access to his email then how is this different than the article they had a couple of weeks ago on someone whose Paypal account was reset by an identity thief over the phone (twice) ... if someone on the phone doesn't have full access to a person's accounts, like email, I would hope that all companies exercise a lot of diligence before just handing some stranger (and without that court validation of your documentation you are a stranger) full access to my accounts
 
kbrickley said:
I still think there has to be some other agenda at play here ... the Apple ID site has a forgot your ID reset link (I don't want to reset my password to test it since I share an account with my sons) ... I am assuming that if she had access to all his accounts (including email) then she could easily switch the password ... IF she doesn't have access to his email then how is this different than the article they had a couple of weeks ago on someone whose Paypal account was reset by an identity thief over the phone (twice) ... if someone on the phone doesn't have full access to a person's accounts, like email, I would hope that all companies exercise a lot of diligence before just handing some stranger (and without that court validation of your documentation you are a stranger) full access to my accounts
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I know you, the lawyer, aren't claiming that a Court Order is the only method acceptable for verifying one's identity?

And the real issue here is not this specific occurrence, but the greater issue at hand, that businesses on the whole are not treating digital property rights in a manner consistent with physical property rights and have for the most part, dodged dealing with the issue of inheritance, etc.

On the one hand, licensed access to services die with the owner, this does not mean the data associated with the account is not owned by the licensee and should not be transferred to a survivor upon death. Instead of being greedy Apple should simply offer to make the woman a new AppleID and Account, transfer non-subscription based licenses, and offer to transfer her husband's data to the account once all the services are up and running for the device. Any subscription based licenses would run their course and terminate at the end of the subscription time frame with an option to renew.

That's how you keep customers, what Apple did is how you loose them.
 
lcpiper said:
I know you, the lawyer, aren't claiming that a Court Order is the only method acceptable for verifying one's identity?

And the real issue here is not this specific occurrence, but the greater issue at hand, that businesses on the whole are not treating digital property rights in a manner consistent with physical property rights and have for the most part, dodged dealing with the issue of inheritance, etc.

On the one hand, licensed access to services die with the owner, this does not mean the data associated with the account is not owned by the licensee and should not be transferred to a survivor upon death. Instead of being greedy Apple should simply offer to make the woman a new AppleID and Account, transfer non-subscription based licenses, and offer to transfer her husband's data to the account once all the services are up and running for the device. Any subscription based licenses would run their course and terminate at the end of the subscription time frame with an option to renew.

That's how you keep customers, what Apple did is how you loose them.
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You are mixing two different issues (and I suspect that is the intent of the article as well by using the poor elderly widow as their story vehicle)

- Issue one, how much verification is needed for a company to reset an account if a person is following a non-standard approach (not using the established link and email on the account) ... I would hope that companies continue to hold the line on this issue as identity thieves have become more and more sophisticated as the value of a person's digital footprint has increased

- Issue two, is digital merchandise transferable ... this is trickier as the current Apple (and other company) contracts say it is not ... your purchase of digital items establishes a non-transferable contract between you and the company ... once you die, the contract dies with you ... the courts have not yet ruled on whether this is legal and binding and it isn't to either Apple's or any other company's advantage to set a precedent where they are permitting this transfer ... since digital goods do not degrade over time I can see the company point of view on not having them become transferable across generations ... unless the courts establish a clear ruling on this I don't see the companies changing their stance on digital ownership anytime soon
 
Issue one comes down to the customer service rep pointing out the link to the customer so they can reset the password via the accepted method.

The Apple laptop is not a digital item, it's a physical item, Apple at least knew enough not to try and make her buy a new one, or pull a Microsoft and try to make her buy a new copy of the OS. They also offered to essentially wipe it and reinstall which again supports the concept that the company actually knows what's right in this case, the woman inherited the laptop, it's hers, she needs to be able to run it's software.

Again, she may not inherit the licenses to other apps and such that were not sold with the device, but the data associated with the applications are a separate issue again, and should be inheritable.

Furthermore digital goods do degrade over time and do not remain useful as hardware, operating systems, etc evolve, old software is left as useless. In fact, digital goods can degrade at rates far faster then average physical goods. Games are a perfect example because most game developers will create their product with some backward compatibility in play but will not do much to keep that product compatible with future operating systems and changes in standards. In the digital world, this is how software degrades and it's amazing, every one and zero remain in place while the product's usefulness turns to crap.

I hate to say it, but this is a case where it will take the Federal Government to step in and make things right, cause things are not right as it stands.

Again, Apple cutting off it's nose to spite it's face.
 
lcpiper said:
Issue one comes down to the customer service rep pointing out the link to the customer so they can reset the password via the accepted method.

The Apple laptop is not a digital item, it's a physical item, Apple at least knew enough not to try and make her buy a new one, or pull a Microsoft and try to make her buy a new copy of the OS. They also offered to essentially wipe it and reinstall which again supports the concept that the company actually knows what's right in this case, the woman inherited the laptop, it's hers, she needs to be able to run it's software.

Again, she may not inherit the licenses to other apps and such that were not sold with the device, but the data associated with the applications are a separate issue again, and should be inheritable.

Furthermore digital goods do degrade over time and do not remain useful as hardware, operating systems, etc evolve, old software is left as useless. In fact, digital goods can degrade at rates far faster then average physical goods. Games are a perfect example because most game developers will create their product with some backward compatibility in play but will not do much to keep that product compatible with future operating systems and changes in standards. In the digital world, this is how software degrades and it's amazing, every one and zero remain in place while the product's usefulness turns to crap.

I hate to say it, but this is a case where it will take the Federal Government to step in and make things right, cause things are not right as it stands.

Again, Apple cutting off it's nose to spite it's face.
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According to the article this is about her wanting to use the solitaire game installed on his iPad so it is specifically about the transfer of digital rights (which Apple contracts currently prohibit ... along with other companies like Steam) ... I agree that the government will likely need to get involved if people want to supersede their existing contract with the digital markets (which make the digital merchandise null and void after the original user dies) ... people can get around this by using the original accounts (if they have password access), but the transfer of digital rights is still something a company has no legal obligation to permit ... whether they do so out of the generosity of their hearts is between them and their shareholders/suppliers to decide (or the courts if it eventually makes it to that level)

Also, although digital goods (like games) might degrade there are still other digital goods (like music) that would not ... for right or wrong the current contracts everyone signs to gain access to digital merchandise makes that merchandise license non-transferable ... the law may change that in the future, but for now the law is actually on the side of the digital license seller and not the buyer
 
Shocking majority of opinions here.

I can read all your old correspondence, get your pension, money, houses, car...but god forbid Apple transfer over your iTunes account. :rolleyes:

If you don't like it, don't get married. Apple is clearly in the wrong here.
 
This is why you don't tell them someone is dead. You just use your social engineering powers and have a male relative (sons are preferable because they know enough about their father's to pass just about any check) call and pretend to be the deceased.

Is it wrong that my first reaction in every case is to just tell them whatever I think will make it easiest regardless of the accuracy of what I have to tell them? I'm not sure but it definitely works.
 
Quix said:
This is why you don't tell them someone is dead. You just use your social engineering powers and have a male relative (sons are preferable because they know enough about their father's to pass just about any check) call and pretend to be the deceased.

Is it wrong that my first reaction in every case is to just tell them whatever I think will make it easiest regardless of the accuracy of what I have to tell them? I'm not sure but it definitely works.
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Is it wrong? Yes

Is it smart to post it online today? Not very

Sorry man, I calls it as I sees it.

In this day it's better, that if you are going to do things that could get you into trouble, that you don't write about it online. People are too easy to find these days and the internet is just not nearly as anonymous as it used to be :D
 
TwistedAegis said:
Shocking majority of opinions here.

I can read all your old correspondence, get your pension, money, houses, car...but god forbid Apple transfer over your iTunes account. :rolleyes:

If you don't like it, don't get married. Apple is clearly in the wrong here.
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Why Apple should, upon receipt of documentation of the husband's death, have quickly and quietly given her whatever she needed to get access to her husband's account: They should not want their license agreement/terms of use examined too closely in this regard. Whatever the husband bought via iTunes was bought with community property and therefore should be considered community property. In the absence of specific stipulations in a will, everything that was the husband's becomes the wife's (and vice versa, of course).

There's no defense for non-transferability except "well, we said it was non-transferable up front," and I don't think that's going to cut it if a case such as this ends up in court. For example, let's say a couple buys a hundred movies on iTunes over the years. They both watched the movies on their AppleTV and they used one account to do it. Practically speaking, they'd probably both have the password available but the argument being offered by some (many) posts in this thread is that if the spouse who owned the account (had their name on it) dies then the surviving spouse doesn't retain ownership of the account. That's moronic and I highly doubt that it would survive a court challenge if Apple tried to defend it.
 
lcpiper said:
And I think you are wrong. She has to do nothing special to get the house, the car, the TV, his written mail, it's all hers unless he says differently, it's just automatic. Why do you want to insist that this is different?
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That's not true. In the US, when someone dies without a will the property is handled differently according to the intestacy laws of the state the person resided in.

Sole bank accounts don't transfer over without a court proceeding (even with a will).

In fact, I can't think of anywhere you can simply walk in with some notarized paperwork and ask for assets to be handed over without a judge's orders.

Why do people turn their brains off when Apple is in the headlines. Do you really want your bank accounts to vanish just because someone was able to produce a notarized death certificate, a copy of a will, and the bank account number? :rolleyes:
 
JustReason said:
Might I guess most of you aren't married? Does your significant other know that you don't truly give yourself whole and completely to them? Seriously she sounds like she may have been a decent enough wife to respect his privacy to not know his password. I don't know my wifes out of respect of hers but god forbid she passes before me I would like access to make sure nothing of note is there that could impact my finacials or maybe poics to remember her by, she love to take selfies.
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I'm married. My wife can access any accounts or systems she wants any time she wants but she doesn't have the passwords handy because in my profession I can't trust her technical ability to protect them.

Likewise, I change them often enough that it would be useful for her to keep records of them anyhow.

For anybody who has been through the probate process a court order to release records shouldn't be too difficult to obtain. This sounds confusing because this woman, like most people, doesn't understand what's systemically at risk by releasing account information.

I'm proud of Apple for requiring a court order regardless of circumstance... and I don't often admit to being proud of Apple.
 
Also sorry for double post but Apple *doesn't have the password.*

They may be able to *reset* the password, but they absolutely can't *give* the password because that isn't how responsible credential storage works.
 
lcpiper said:
And I think you are wrong. She has to do nothing special to get the house, the car, the TV, his written mail, it's all hers unless he says differently, it's just automatic. Why do you want to insist that this is different?
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That is a good example. Suppose you were left a house in a will. The house is yours. But no key was given to you for the doors. Who's responsibility is it to make sure you can get access to that house? The bank that owns the mortgage? The government that owns the land it's on? Schlage , the company that made the lock? Or do you get a locksmith to open the door? Or just break a window?

The account is there, fully useable, exactly as the man left it. Apple is not shutting down the account. They are not deleting the assets in the account. They are simply saying give us a legal obligation for us to provide you with the key.

Now you might think that is absurd, but consider this. I assume that Canada is the same, but at least for America and the UK, I know we consider ourselves to be a nation that follows the "rule of law". This means that any dispute *should* be able to be settled using the law. If you believe your neighbor should be the one to replace the fence that you share, the spirit of our legal system requires you to sue him. NOT to make millions of dollars, NOT to humiliate him. But simply to acknowledge that you believe that there is a legal precedence which shows he should be responsible and also for there to be a legal decree making his obligation official. That is the true nature of the legal system.

No where in that article did I see Apple saying they did not want to help her. They said if you can provide us with a legal obligation to do so, we will do so. Inconveniencing a grieving old lady is not illegal, but maybe it should be.
 
mope54 said:
That's not true. In the US, when someone dies without a will the property is handled differently according to the intestacy laws of the state the person resided in.

Sole bank accounts don't transfer over without a court proceeding (even with a will).

In fact, I can't think of anywhere you can simply walk in with some notarized paperwork and ask for assets to be handed over without a judge's orders.

Why do people turn their brains off when Apple is in the headlines. Do you really want your bank accounts to vanish just because someone was able to produce a notarized death certificate, a copy of a will, and the bank account number? :rolleyes:
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Most peeps don't die without a will and this woman had one and sent in a notarized copy of it.
 
Zangmonkey said:
I'm married. My wife can access any accounts or systems she wants any time she wants but she doesn't have the passwords handy because in my profession I can't trust her technical ability to protect them.

Likewise, I change them often enough that it would be useful for her to keep records of them anyhow.

For anybody who has been through the probate process a court order to release records shouldn't be too difficult to obtain. This sounds confusing because this woman, like most people, doesn't understand what's systemically at risk by releasing account information.

I'm proud of Apple for requiring a court order regardless of circumstance... and I don't often admit to being proud of Apple.
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Similar, my wife is part of everything, house in both our names, joint accounts, everything. If she wanted to clean me out I would never see it coming. I may regret it one day but i over 32 years it hasn't happened yet.

I'd give her passwords too and I have given her pin numbers, she's just not there enough to remember my passwords very easily. Maybe under hypnosis she's get them :cool:
 
westrock2000 said:
That is a good example. Suppose you were left a house in a will. The house is yours. But no key was given to you for the doors. Who's responsibility is it to make sure you can get access to that house? The bank that owns the mortgage? The government that owns the land it's on? Schlage , the company that made the lock? Or do you get a locksmith to open the door? Or just break a window?

The account is there, fully useable, exactly as the man left it. Apple is not shutting down the account. They are not deleting the assets in the account. They are simply saying give us a legal obligation for us to provide you with the key.

Now you might think that is absurd, but consider this. I assume that Canada is the same, but at least for America and the UK, I know we consider ourselves to be a nation that follows the "rule of law". This means that any dispute *should* be able to be settled using the law. If you believe your neighbor should be the one to replace the fence that you share, the spirit of our legal system requires you to sue him. NOT to make millions of dollars, NOT to humiliate him. But simply to acknowledge that you believe that there is a legal precedence which shows he should be responsible and also for there to be a legal decree making his obligation official. That is the true nature of the legal system.

No where in that article did I see Apple saying they did not want to help her. They said if you can provide us with a legal obligation to do so, we will do so. Inconveniencing a grieving old lady is not illegal, but maybe it should be.
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People still carry mortages? :D

I'm actually serious, own two homes never had a mortgage, which is a great part of why I have two.
 
lcpiper said:
Most peeps don't die without a will and this woman had one and sent in a notarized copy of it.
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The point is that property transferring upon death is not "automatic" as you wrote.

You have to draft a will or the property will transfer according to the laws of the state you resided within. Regardless, I don't know of any place that is going to take a notarized death certificate as proof enough to hand over your property to someone claiming to be your widow or widower.

I mean, I realize you probably haven't died before, but the process is someone dies, will gets filed in probate court, court makes a ruling, widow(er) and interested parties leave with appropriate paperwork.

You seem to think that a will is just kept in a shoebox, the surviving spouse can just whip it out and carry it around town like an official document unlocking all the assets, and a notarized death certificate is good enough for anyone holding the assets.

Just to point out that would be silly for the very basic reason of what do you think would happen if he had updated his will and wanted to leave his Apple account to his son or daughter instead of his wife? That's just one reason for a formal court proceeding. It wasn't an onerous request. Apple wasn't asking her for a search warrant or something like that. It should have been standard procedure to have some kind of ruling in writing that was completely separate from the Apple account. The surprising thing is why she didn't have the probate court's ruling in the first place.
 
mope54 said:
Sole bank accounts don't transfer over without a court proceeding (even with a will).

In fact, I can't think of anywhere you can simply walk in with some notarized paperwork and ask for assets to be handed over without a judge's orders.

Why do people turn their brains off when Apple is in the headlines. Do you really want your bank accounts to vanish just because someone was able to produce a notarized death certificate, a copy of a will, and the bank account number? :rolleyes:
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That's purely dependent on the (self-certified by the person presenting the death certificate) size of the estate. If they come in with a death certificate and the assets are below that threshold, yes it's simply liquidated or transferred over, even if a beneficiary is not named.
 
mi7chy said:
No company is above the law. They need to follow the law.
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They are. Google and Facebook has a similar policy.

A death certificate can close an account ( or in Facebook's case memorialize it) and retrieve funds from it if there's any but full access requires a court order because then it becomes an issue of privacy for the deceased. Even doctors and lawyers don't discuss what's in the files of the deceased unless it's due to a court order.
 
Private information is not always joint property of a married couple. Even medical records are private to the individual. Those too require a court order for release, even to spouse, relatives, or other next of kin.
 
mope54 said:
That's not true. In the US, when someone dies without a will the property is handled differently according to the intestacy laws of the state the person resided in.

Sole bank accounts don't transfer over without a court proceeding (even with a will).

In fact, I can't think of anywhere you can simply walk in with some notarized paperwork and ask for assets to be handed over without a judge's orders.

Why do people turn their brains off when Apple is in the headlines. Do you really want your bank accounts to vanish just because someone was able to produce a notarized death certificate, a copy of a will, and the bank account number? :rolleyes:
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Yup, this is why as a single person who lives alone I have a parent on my bank account. Otherwise in my death the money goes to the bank because there is no living account holder. Even if I had a will that states everything goes to my parents or whatever, the bank account would go to the bank.
 
Exavior said:
Yup, this is why as a single person who lives alone I have a parent on my bank account. Otherwise in my death the money goes to the bank because there is no living account holder. Even if I had a will that states everything goes to my parents or whatever, the bank account would go to the bank.
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No, just no. As an example, in California a "small estate" is less than $150,000. You fill out a small estate affidavit, bring in the death certificate, and the bank account would be transferred or cashed out to your parent(s), even if they were not listed as a beneficiary.

Even if that wasn't the case, it doesn't go to the bank. It is escheated to the state, where the funds can then be claimed by proper procedures.
 
TwistedAegis said:
No, just no. As an example, in California a "small estate" is less than $150,000. You fill out a small estate affidavit, bring in the death certificate, and the bank account would be transferred or cashed out to your parent(s), even if they were not listed as a beneficiary.

Even if that wasn't the case, it doesn't go to the bank. It is escheated to the state, where the funds can then be claimed by proper procedures.
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I stand corrected then. Looks like my state however is less than $50,000 and must be filed through the court. So still require a court order to be turned over to the family just like this apple account.
 
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