How do you handle two-factor-auth if you're dead?

[Haertig]

Situation: We have several banking and investment accounts that use two-factor-authentication (2FA) for login. I am in the process of documenting all our accounts, including online access, for our kids. To make things easier if my wife and I were to die suddenly.

Question: How do you others deal with this? Most of our 2FA goes to our smart phones. But if we're in a plane crash or something like that, our smart phones would be blown up with the rest of us. Even if the smart phones were available, it would be a hassle for the kids to find them (considering we're in Colorado and my daughter is in Hawaii!)

It's possible, in most but not all accounts, to use email for 2FA. So I would just need to document the email login and password. However, there are a few hold outs that don't give the option to use email for 2FA. Smart phone 2FA is much more convenient, and I'd hate to give that up since we use it all the time.

So what are y'all doing to handle this situation?

 

[theheathen13]

Power of attorney?

 

[Haertig]

Power of Attorney ceases when you do - it's only applicable while you are still alive. Once you are dead, so is any Power of Attorney that you assigned. After death, responsibilities fall to your "Personal Representative", a.k.a. "Executor". And that can get tied up in probate. Giving direct access to your accounts gets around that, if your kid (assumed to be Executor) moves quickly and takes the money they immediately need (funeral expenses, etc) out of your accounts before the banks shut things down after being notified of your death. You kids will eventually get your money, emphasis on "eventually". I'm trying to make things easy to get the money "immediately" rather then "eventually". Much of our stuff is in a trust, which takes care of all that. But retirement accounts (IRA's, 401K's, 403B's) are not owned by a trust. These have beneficiaries (another thing that can get held up after a death). Bills still need to be paid, and that's a lot easier with online access to the bank and credit card and merchant accounts without having to wait on Letters of Testamentary, or wait on probate (it you didn't set up your trust correctly - a big reason to have a trust is to stay out of probate).

 

[theheathen13]

Well that’s weird it worked just fine when my wife’s parents passed away. Go figure.

 

[Haertig]

Our estate lawyer said my mom's Power of Attorney wouldn't work after death. I wonder if the rules could vary by state? Or maybe some clause in our specific document said it expires on death and yours did not include that clause? That's quite possible, because when my mom moved here (Colorado) from Texas we had to have one of her estate documents re-done for Colorado. I just checked my copy of her estate plan, and sure enough, I see that the document that had to be changed was indeed the Power of Attorney. So that kind of implies that this particular document has different requirements in different states. So maybe my "Power of Attorney stops at death" statement only applies in Colorado, or only applies to my mom's specific PoA document as written. I don't know ... I'm just speculating here. I did not read and compare the old and new PoA documents, so I don't know what the changes were. Our attorney just said we needed to re-do the document, so we paid him to re-do it for Colorado so that it did the same functions in Colorado as it used to do in Texas in it's prior version.

 

[bkt]

I was POA for my mom during her stint in a nursing home before she passed and I was able to send banks and credit unions copies of the POA paperwork to get access to her accounts without issue. Once she passed away, I no longer had authority to do any of that; my brother, who was executor of her estate, had to provide death certificates to the banks/credit unions to gain access.

By far, the easiest thing to do is add your kids to your deed and make them joint owners of bank accounts. That's if you trust them, of course. If that's not practical or possible, ask the organizations that offer MFA what the best way to deal with this is. They should be able to provide helpful suggestions.

 

[backlash]

My advice is to seek legal counsel.
Spend a few dollars to make sure you have things covered the way you want.
Free advice on the internet is worth what you paid to get it.

 

[Morgan101]

We went to an elder lawyer. They looked at our entire estate, all of our assets, accounts, insurance, titles, trusts, everything. Everything is in place to transfer to our daughter, be it directly to her, or through our trust.

While I think they did an excellent job, maybe the best part of the whole deal was everything is in a 3" ring binder, so should that ever happen (both of us dying at the same time), our daughter has one place to go to get everything, and one person to call to handle everything, or get her answers to any questions. She knows where it is, and what we have done. It was not cheap, but these people do it for a living. They asked questions we never even thought of. Very thorough. They helped enormously. I would highly recommend getting that type of expert legal advice.

 

[Haertig]

While I think they did an excellent job, maybe the best part of the whole deal was everything is in a 3" ring binder,

We have all that completed too. Nice binder, they gave us a thumbdrive with the binders contents also. Contains the trust, wills, power of attorney, health care power of attorney, advanced directives, HIPPA forms, etc.

But not everything we own is in the trust, per our estate lawyers advice. Some of it can't be owned by a trust, other things don't need to be. And in our case, some things should be in the trust, but we haven't haven't gotten around to titling them to the trust yet. Small bank accounts we use for specific things (e.g., we have personal and business bank accounts at multiple banks). We do not keep large amounts of money in these bank accounts. Not enough to worry badly about them not being owned by the trust yet, because they are small in value and not enough to force things into probate. In Colorado, you are allowed a maximum amount of personal assets before you have to go to probate. Big stuff is in the trust, but a bunch of smaller accounts totaling $40k between them are not a problem, even though technically they should be in the trust. It is these non-trust accounts that I want the kids to have quick online access to. They are cosigners on some of those accounts, but not all of them. Because some of our banks require the person to physically come into the bank to be set up as a cosigner. That's tough to do when we are in Colorado and our daughter is in Hawaii. So we have ended up with a few rogue accounts that are not configured the preferred way when it comes to our estate plan. These are the accounts I am targeting with my shared 2FA questions. The non-trust-owned ones.

 

[Morgan101]

These are the accounts I am targeting with my shared 2FA questions. The non-trust-owned ones.

All good. What does your attorney recommend?

 

[Haertig]

All good. What does your attorney recommend?

We haven't talked to him recently. We have some changes we want to make to the trust, and will schedule an appointment to do that soon. If I haven't figured out the 2FA thing by then, I'll ask if he has any advice on the matter at the appointment. I thought I'd ask here first, because it's faster, and we have a lot of knowledgeable and experienced people here who might already have a solution to share.

 

[SheepDog]

The best way to provide access to bank accounts after a death is to have them listed as full and equal partners on the signature card.
If you go into the bank you don't have to use the authorization. My authorization is set up to use my phone - the one that plugs into the wall.

 

[Neb]

I was ...

By far, the easiest thing to do is add your kids to your deed and make them joint owners of bank accounts. That's if you trust them, of course. If that's not practical or possible, ask the organizations that offer MFA what the best way to deal with this is. They should be able to provide helpful suggestions.

I Have heard that is risky for a home.

Kid drives drunk and kills someone. The house will have to be sold to cover it.

Kid dies. Parent has to pay inheritance taxes on half the house.

Get an attorney to do it right

Ben

 

[Haertig]

I Have heard that is risky for a home.

Yes. Our estate attorney said "do not do this".

Similar concerns had us put the kids inheritance into separate trusts. That keeps it safe from seizure (if done correctly by a competent lawyer) in case they have that example drunk driving kill event, or get divorced, or a multitude of other things most people don't think about.

 

[Sourdough]

The reason cell phones are stolen is not for the phone, but everything important people now store on their cell phone, Personal information.

 

[Morgan101]

Our estate lawyer said my mom's Power of Attorney wouldn't work after death. I wonder if the rules could vary by state?

I'm sure they do. We have guardianship for our mentally challenged son who cannot live alone. We had to make sure the guardianship transferred to our daughter when we pass, and to her spouse (who agreed) if she should pass. It gets complicated beyond belief, which was why we felt more comfortable in the hands of experts.

 

[BBLife]

If you simply have them on your Will as the executor then as executor they will get signature cards to be able to add themselves to the bank accounts and do what they need to do. Then they can setup their own online access as needed. I was executor for my dad and when I went to handle the estate I got a dozen signature cards that game me the right to sign as my dad on anything.