Also known as: payable on death
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A beneficiary designation on a deposit account directing that sums on deposit pass at the death of the party or parties to one or more named beneficiaries. The designation may appear either as an explicit pay-on-death instruction or as an account titled in trustee form when the only trust res consists of the account balance itself. A beneficiary under the designation acquires no interest during the lifetime of any party.
Pablo Perez opens a savings account at Local Bank and completes the bank's standard payable-on-death form naming his niece Priya Prasad as beneficiary. The account agreement states that Pablo retains full withdrawal rights during his life. Upon Pablo's death the bank pays the remaining balance directly to Priya without probate proceedings.
Karen Myers titled a checking account, certificate of deposit, and annuity payable on death to her daughters. After Karen's death her surviving spouse Howard asserts an elective share claim that includes those balances. The court must decide whether the POD designations place the assets outside the elective share calculation.
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Yes. Sums on deposit pass directly to the named beneficiary by the terms of the account and therefore do not enter probate administration.
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The account is treated as a POD designation when the relationship is created solely by the account terms and the only trust property consists of the sums on deposit.
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Yes. Under the Uniform Probate Code a divorce revokes any revocable disposition to a former spouse contained in a governing instrument, including a POD designation executed before the divorce.
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No. The terms of the account contract control, and a POD designation cannot be altered by a will.
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…retirement account; and property acquired by right of survivorship, by a trust distribution, by bequest or inheritance or by a payable on death or a transfer on death arrangement under ch. 705. 3. With funds acquired in a manner provided in subd. 1. or 2. Wis. Stat. § 767.61(2)(a). If excluding this property "will create a…