Anurag Prasad 28 January 2018

Death claim settlement, NO nominee

My father expired in Jan 2016 who was defence pensioner (SBI account). There was no nominee. First we reached bank for my mother's pension, documentation done new account (for my mother's pension) opened in the same branch. And for claiming the left amount (7.5 lacs) in my late father's account, SBI Bank gave document "Settlement of Deceased assets without legal representation/nomination" to submit, in which there is also letter of indemnity too. The problem is We are not getting Sureties. (Max. 2 Sureties are allowed, but we r not getting one also). People r ready to be surety but there account is in different bank. SBI service mgr says, Sureties should be SBI customers , so that they can check the Sureties r maintaining good balance. My doubt is that already defence is giving pension to my mother. What else proof they want. Kindly suggest.

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3 Replies

Anurag Prasad 28 January 2018

Mother's pension also started.

Isaac Gabriel (Advocate) 29 January 2018

However, the bank need legal heir certificate to accept your request for credit in your mother's account, eventhou you would have surrendered it during opening account for getting the pension. You insist the bank manager to close the deposit account of your father and credit in your mothers' account, or disburse it in cash to authorising your mother to get the amount.The bankers will not hesitate to harass the customers in order to save them from any dispute in future.

R.Ramachandran (Advocate) 29 January 2018

In this case, the bank seems to be quite unaware of the legal requirements, where the balance in any account without nomination is more than Rs. 1 lakh, and due to their own understanding of the law, are ready to accept Indemnity Bond with sureties.

If you are not able to get sureties, the next alternative (and in fact requirement of law) is for you to obtain Succession Certificate by approaching the Civil Court in your area. This will take maximum 3-6 months to get the certificate through court process. You may have to pay a fixed percentage as Court fee.

The bank is not supposed to credit the balance in your father's account to your mother's account.

In this case, let us not unnecessarily castigate the bank as harassing etc. Those who know the law cannot and will not state so.