Small safe/container for disaster protection in basement...

[Norminn]

Safe deposit boxes at banks are not waterproof; doesn't usually matter unless the bank is a block from the Gulf of Mexico or somewhere similar.

[micky]

No but it's true. By no good, I mean if the payee presents it at the bank knowing the payer is dead, he's violated some regulation and proabably a law, and if the bank pays it knowing the payer is dead, it has violated a regulation, probably a law, and effectively has stolen from the estate of the dead person.

Even if the bank pays when neither the bank nor the payee knows the payer is dead, the money can be seized and returned to the estate.

The uncashed check IS evidence of a debt, and it should be presented to the deceased's estate, to be paid along with its other debts. I don't know what the priority is for checks, but regardless, there may not be enough money in the estate to pay the check in full, even if there was enough in the checking account to fully pay it when it was written.

[Unquestionably Confused]

Either provide a legal cite, statute or banking regulation or take this theory and put it where it belongs... in the toilet.

"Some regulation", "probably a law"? With such specificity you undoubtedly have a firm grasp of... nothing.

With a non-post dated check, payment has been tendered to the creditor or payee on the date the check was drawn. It's no different than if the decedent had paid $300 to Home Depot and then keeled over and died in the parking lot as he loaded his purchase in the car. Now, if the check had been written AFTER he died...

[HerHusband]

Hi John,

I have a small Sentry 1170 fire safe, but we don't store much in it. These aren't waterproof, so we haven't had any issues with mold growing inside. "Supposedly" when there is a fire, the lid kind of melts or fuses to the box sealing it off from heat and water. I hope I never need to test it. :)

Also, most fire safes are not rated for "media". In other words, they keep the contents below 400 degrees or so to prevent paper from catching fire. However, most media such as video tapes, CD's, or hard drives would likely be damaged by these temperatures. Media Fire Safes exist, but cost much more.

Finally, fire safes are rated by the length of time they offer protection. In other words, they may only protect your valuable papers for an hour or two before the contents get hot enough to burn. What happens if your house burns for three hours?

A much better solution than a fire/water safe container is redundancy. Make copies of everything and store them in more than one location. I use a safe deposit box at the bank to store my backup hard drive and passports. However, you could also store your duplicates at a friend or relatives house, or even in a storage unit.

By having duplicates any one of the single items can be destroyed, but you can still retrieve one of your backup copies from the other location. For instance, if your house burns down and falls into the sea, you can still get to the safe deposit box at the bank. If the bank falls down in an earthquake, you'll still have your copies at home.

If possible, you should try to select locations that don't share the same risks. In other words, don't store papers at your neighbors house if you're both in a flood zone. I live on a hill so I don't have to worry much about floods. On the other hand, forest fires are a risk here but the bank downtown doesn't have to worry about that.

For your digital media (hard drives), remember to rotate your drives routinely. This will prevent the mechanisms from sticking due to unuse, and will ensure your backups aren't too outdated.

Take care,

Anthony Watson

[RobertMacy]

From personal experience, not very 'safe' either.

Ms. and I inventoried EVERY item that went in, we had a well documented complete list that we double checked for accuracy. Next time we opened the box, found several items missing, and unbelievably some substitutions. We confronted the bank, they claimed impossible. They went through that song and dance about double keys, etc etc. Being pragmatic here, I said I didn't care that it was impossible, I cared it happened and told them how we had inventoried every item, the next time we opened the box, nothing had changed, hmmmmm. After that experience, I just keep the items somewhere else. and guess what? nothing ends up missing.

[micky]

LOL Why should I face a choice like that? I know I'm right, even if you don't. I've got better things to do than search the web for citations. You ask your own lawyer.

I've done you a favor by telling you what the law is.

An insult, huh! I know 100 times more about it than you do. Why should I bother keeping track of which law it is, when I know it's illegal to present a check made by a person who is now dead?

Do you know the statutes against speeding or stealing? No, and unless you might be about to violate one of them, or already have, you don't need to know,. It's enough to know that they're illegal.

A tender is not the same as a payment. A payment by check is not complete, is not made until the check is cashed,

Tendering payment doesn't even mean that the tender was accepted, just that it was offered, so that also means you are using the wrong word. For example, a tenant whose lease is expiring tomorrow can tender another month's payment. If the landlord accepts it, the tenant, barring other complications, has the right to use the property for another month. But if the landlord declines the tender, the tender had no effect.

$300 cash? A check is entirely different from cash. When one pays cash, the payment has been made. There is no outstanding debt.

A $300 check? That is the same as any other check. ....

....If it isn't cashed before the payer dies, the check may not be legally negotiated. It should be returned to HD by the bank and HD should present it to the executor of the estate.

[RobertMacy]

For clarity, *if* a check is written October 14th and the guy dies Oct

15th; it is illegal to deposit the check in your account on the 16th for the bank to process?

What if goods changed hands? What if this is for a service to be delivered in the future? Does the legality require 'knowledge' of the death? For example, Unknown to you the guy died, why not deposit the check with impunity, or is that culpability? Or, his death is known to you and you quickly deposit the check?

Wow! a lot of if's here. Seems like it's the responsibility of the banking industry to 'freeze' the deceased's account, return the check, and then require you to present it to the Executor. All without punishment to you looming over your head.

From a comment by one of my vendors in CA, He said please do NOT post date your check, if anything happens to you I have no recourse in trying to collect a check dated AFTER your death, instead write it today and I give you my word I will not deposit it until the post date [when given time to liquidate and move required funds into checking account]. But, then I know that treads into territory of writing a check on an account WITHOUT sufficient funds in that account, which, to my understanding, is illegal. Just NO WAY around trying to do business between two people the way the state gets involved.

Maybe a 'promisory' note to pay on such-and-such date, eh?

[micky]

I believe you, not them. There is no reason someone can't make a copy of the customer key before the customer rents the box. Except fear of the law or of being fired and a lot of people don't fear those things much.

I'm sorry this happened to you.

[RobertMacy]

Thank you. Nothing was taken that was significant in value, nor of great sentimental value. The loss just 'plays' with your brain. You keep trying to believe them [bank institution] about the security aspect and the impossiblity of it happening. Keep questioning your own 'sanity' However, there were TWO of us cross checking this time.

I posited the possibility of a key copy and was told how the person who goes with you to the box observes that the number matches the requested box number on the card, so that could not happen. Every scenario had an answer, so I gave up and later reclaimed all the contents from the box and stored elsewhere.

About five years later we were watching a film and one of the actors made the comment something along the line of "Thank God they put it in a safe deposit box, at least we can get it." Say What?! Do the writers make this up, or is this based on some reality from somewhere?

[micky]

If the depositer knows the guy is dead, it's either a violation of a law, a regulation, or both. They might have shown mercy and not made it a violation of law, but I sort of doubt it.

Too bad, so sad. For the vendor. That's one reason organized vendors take their checks to the bank for deposit the same day they get them, not two days later like in your example. That's why they have night depositories (or used to?)

Of course most people I know have money to pay all their debts, even after they're dead. So he gets his money late, but he still gets it.

Maybe he could go and take back the merchandise he sold, even though maybe t hat's illegal. But a big place like HD would be crazy to do this without checking the legalit y.

I used to fix tv's etc. for a hobby, and I put up flyers at the college near me, and people in my 49-apt. building knew aobut me. One guy brought me his cheap (but it still worked when it worked) receiver-stereo, and said he'd like to get back by Saturday. I said "Having a party?" No, I just want it back. (No one else ever gave me even a hoped for time limit.) I actually had it working by then and I gave it back to him, even though he didnt' have the money. (It was 15 or 20 dollars, not much, even then) I would have had a mechanics lien on the thing if I had kept it, and I didnt realize at the time that by giving it to him, I gave up my lien and couldn't get it back, unless he requested more work on it.

But I was angry after another week went by with no money, so I waited until he wasn't home and knocked on the door and told his girlfriend I was going to tix the other thing that was wrong with it (He had mentioned that there was, but it worked for me.) After a couple minutes I told her I had to take it to my apartment, and I did. I was reckless in those days.

My roommate and I waited all evening for him to come demanding his item. My roommate seemed to want to have a fight, even though he was sort of skinny. He never showed up, but a day or two later, the girlfriend saw me on the sidewalk and wanted to know why I had taken the item. It turns out, she said, he beat her up instead of beating me up. She called the police. If I had foreseen her getting hurt, I wouldn't have taken the thing back. That never occurred to me. He never came for his stereo until 3 or 4 years later. I met him in the lobby and like a fool, again, said too much, told him that I'd sold it to get the money he owed me. Then he said he wanted to get it back, and I realized I shouldn't have said what I did, so I changed the story entirely and said I still had it. Did he have the money? No he didn't. So I said no, and he didnt' threaten me, left on his own, and never came back. But this is the kind of trouble one get\s into when he (me) doesn't follow the rules.

Not if you don't know he died.

Some people would do that, and they may very well get away with it. Even if the bank is notified quickly of the death (of everyeone who died the previous day in the area, only a couple of whom will have accounts at any one bank.) there is bound to be a period of time when the guy is dead and the bank hasn't been told. (Maybe with computers this time is shortened, but there are still people who die thousands of miles away from home, etc.)

I said before that there is a violation of law or regulation by the payee if he knew the payer on the check was dead, and by the bank if it knew the payer was dead.

Not otherwise. But even if neither knew, the estate has the right to reclaim the money paid out. It's not going to do this for $10, especially if the money went to someone who the estate owed $10 to, but there are times when this all matters a lot.

(As an aside, there used to be a scam where people read the obituary page and sent very expensive looking Bibles to the dead person, along with a statement of money owed, and a letter that made it seem like the dead person had ordered the Bible before he died. And of course they wanted 3 times, 10 times?, what even a fancy looking Bible cost. Who's going to refuse to pay for a BIBLE! when they think their loved one ordered it. )

Especially for a service in the future. Now that the guy is dead, maybe no one wants this service anymore. Anyhow, any contract he signed but

That's why there is a separate course called Negotiable Instruments, and why a lawyer should review all the details before giving advice in a particular situation. And why dummies shouldn't be lawyers. And why lawyers make mistakes.

What they ought to do is teach a high school course in "Law you should know for successful living" that would teach people that checks are void after the payer dies; that most deposits are not refundable: that most contracts can't be cancelled within 3 days, can't be cancelled at all; the rules for trees or limbs falling on the neighbor's property, that if the girl is drunk or unconscious, sex with her is rape". A lot of these things, I get the impression a lot of 18 year olds know, but I don't know where they learn them. Right now 3 midshipman at Annapolis are charged with raping a female midshipman who was iirc said to have been drunk. I used to have a list of about 20 topics they should cover, but I've forgotten most of my list. Maybe 10 minutes in class per item would be enough to cover most of them, and of course there could be a textbook too.

I think they did have a course called Commercial Law in my high school but it wasn't required, not many people took it, and I think it dealt with commerce, for people who have a business, and not what people need to know in everyday life,

That would look bad. IANALawyer and this is pretty fact-specific, but I'm not positive he would never have recourse. First I think if it the new owner or manager believed you really had signed the check, I think he could pay. But could the vendor force him to pay. Well, If your assistant or someone believable heard a conversation where you said, I have to post date this check because I haven't got enough in my account now, and maybe it woudl help if the vendor had delivered the goods already and your business had resold the goods already. Or if it could be shown that this was a common practice of yours, post dating checks.

BTW, you are writing personal checks to a vendor? This isn't for your business then, right? "Vendor" at first made me think it was commercial. If it were a business check, even for a minimal corporation, that continues to exist after the president dies, so the check is still good. I should have said personal check before, but we were talking about individuals, I guess, so I didn't think to say that.

If the state didn't get involved there would be even more problems. BTW, a person who writes a post-dated check can't be charged later with knowingly writing a check with insufficient funds. Because, I think as a matter of law, there is no way to show that he didn't think there would be enough money in the account by the date on the check. Even when no one dies. So if someone accepts a post-dated check, he's foregone one of the incentives to make the guy pay, after it bounces. The payer can't be threatened with "writing a check on insufficient funds".

Signed by a person, not for a corporation? Might have all the same issues, but I can see again that I would find it tedious to be a lawyer. Some of them seem to really like it.

[micky]

Well of course the key you have matches the box number. The problem is that some other key also matches it.

I know someone else who had some of this happen to him, or I might not have been so quick to believe you. But you and he make two.

[Pavel314]

We filed one copy of our wills with our county registrar of wills and put another in a little safe that our kids know about.

[micky]

I forgot to say that I don't know the answer to questions about contracts partially completed when one party dies. If it was just the goods it's probably simple, but services, for which the other party may have bought materials, or even started on the work, etc. I don't know. Esp. if it's work his survivors are opposed to, once they find out one of them owns whatever is being worked on.

For example if it's just seeding and fertilizing and putting down some sod, I'd tell the guy my father hired to go ahead with it, and I would get my father's check back and pay him myself, If it's building an observatory with a telescope in the back yard, in the city with all the city lights, I'd rather have the money. I don't know what the law is.

But those are contract issues.

All I claimed to know was whether a check was still good or not.

[Unquestionably Confused]

You know so little that you should just quit trying to prove to us how ignorant you are...

And you are wrong about that when you say that a check becomes non-negotiable upon the death of the maker.

From the Uniform Commercial Code (governing transactions UNIFORMLY in the United States)

§ 4-405. DEATH OR INCOMPETENCE OF CUSTOMER.

(a) A payor or collecting bank's authority to accept, pay, or collect an item or to account for proceeds of its collection, if otherwise effective, is not rendered ineffective by incompetence of a customer of either bank existing at the time the item is issued or its collection is undertaken if the bank does not know of an adjudication of incompetence. Neither death nor incompetence of a customer revokes the authority to accept, pay, collect, or account until the bank knows of the fact of death or of an adjudication of incompetence and has reasonable opportunity to act on it.

(b) Even with knowledge, a bank may for 10 days after the date of death pay or certify checks drawn on or before that date unless ordered to stop payment by a person claiming an interest in the account.

This certainly seems to contradict your unequivocal babblings which were unsupported by anything other than "I KNOW" since, as we all can now see, you DON'T!

[RobertMacy]

Wow, excellent replies and details, thank you.

I wrote an excellent reply [well, at least to me] with many additional anecdotes only to find when I hit SEND, my server AIOE, decided I had too many quoted lines and erased everything!

To the above..YES! Instead of making a school a glorified 'daycare center' why don't they use those tax dollars to educate US citizens on the basics of living in the US? like how to write a checkbook, or balance a checkbook, fill out tax forms, basic contractual laws for vendors and services?WhencourtrommTV first started seemed like a chance to do that, but alas, turned into 'entertainment' making fun of people instead and lost a great opportunity. Before the transition I learned one principle didn't know aobut and didn't even believe, but is true. A buyer bought a stereo system from a friend for $2,000 to pay when he picked it up. He was supposed to come by Wed night and get the system but deferred until the next day for convenience, during the night a fire destroyed EVERYTHING in the seller's home, including the stereo that was NOT picked up. Held up in court of law, the buyer was liable for that $2,000 to pay for now nonexistent stereo, BECAUSE the seller was NOT a commercial vendor, made the system available as agreed, and only stored the system that now belonged to the buyer, but unfortunately lost it through a fire. So, the buyer still had to cough up the 2k!

personal check to vendor? I only called him a vendor, actuallly was a friend and my wife's jewellry broker, excellent dude, now sadly deceased. He knew her tastes and would 'look' for pieces just for her. Check was for a bracelet as a gift for her, around $14k back in the 80's when a dollar was worth almost a dollar so required moving money around, but he wanted me to take it with me to give to her for her birthday. thus, the postdated check.

I have little respect for lawyers until I met three I respected. 1. the guy in the Guinness book [well for awhile] for the largest malpractise claim ever awarded. I asked him what happened, he turned pale as he said "You don't want to know." and he didn't tell me. 2. a 200 pound 6' 1" complete belligerent a**hole, bastard irritating beyond belief, but COMPLETELY unafraid of anything, one you WANT in your corner. [He appeared on the Geraldo Show representing a young widow in a high profile case] and

1. the BEST attorney in his expertise, to the extent that in unrelated company I would be talking about the subject, mention his name, someone would say, "Yeah, is AWSEOME!" followed by a moment of silence in the conversation. Seriously, like being in a church.

[micky]

Section bt certainly does seem to contradict some of what I said, A little looking has shown me that this is a little complicated. When I've read more I'll get back to you.

[Robert Green]

[Ralph Mowery]

If you have a joint account with the right of survivalship, you do not need to shift the money. It will automatically go to you and most likely not be in the estate taxes at all. I think half, but not sure, of the money can still be used by the estate to pay any bills that may come to the estate, even if the money is all yours.

[RobertMacy]

No, Joint Tenant with Right of Surviviorship means that SPECIFIC account is off limits to the estate.