What your bank will do after a death

Banks do not recognise any power of attorney to them unless it is done on their forms and conditions. 

They get an electronic feed every day from the Home Affairs computer to their systems, with a list of people who have died.  Maybe Home Affairs is not the most efficient right now, but they are planning and working hard to get everything digital asap.  So it will be happening soon that the banks will know about a death within a day or so. 

Also if there was activity on the deceased person’s accounts after the time and date on the death certificate, then this could be regarded as fraud. 

We expect that most or all banks will operate in the same way.  Check with your own bank just what their rules are, and whether they give any flexibility to their customers. 

So the assumption (which some people have probably made), that one has to notify the bank of a death and that one has a few days to do any movement of funds before the accounts get frozen, would seem to be false. 

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