celia wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 10:47 pm
tibbitts wrote: ↑Mon Sep 20, 2021 9:32 pm
My takeaway from this is that once you find out someone has died and you're going to be the responsible person, you need to log on as soon as possible (and frequently thereafter, while you still can) and save absolutely all the data you can, just to deal with questions like income ytd, etc.
Again, this could be considered fraud. Would you like someone to just logon to your account right after they read your obituary?
The custodian also needs to know who is logging into your account. If they aren’t the account owner or an authorized user (previously acknowledged by sending in a notarized(?) form signed by the account owner), they have no right to use someone else’s credentials. That’s why each person has their own login. It identifies who is looking or making a transaction.
The bigger issue here, is if you expect Vanguard to safeguard your assets, you need to do your part in helping to make things secure. If money is missing from your account some day and they know you shared your password, the missing money probably won’t be returned to your account. It was your fault for not doing your part in maintaining account security.
And if they noticed someone had logged into their account after they died, they could lock down everything for an investigation so they could figure out what happened. This could delay any disbursements to the real beneficiaries.
Yes, I would want them to log on, and I believe there would be no possibility that logging in would be considered fraud. It's not like a random person is logging in: this is the sole beneficiary of all accounts, executor and sole beneficiary of the estate, etc. As has been pointed out it's possible that without logging in, there would be no way for anyone to access ytd records for taxable events like Roth conversions, capital gains and dividends, or know if any automatic transfers or payments that might be set up would be unfunded, etc. until it was too late to avoid penalties.
Honestly if it was just Vanguard or Fidelity or any one or - maybe - two providers, it could be practical to designate another person who could create his/her own account and have access properly that way. But in real life it's Vanguard and dozens of other accounts, and they all need separate authorizations and procedures, if there's even a mechanism provided for that at all in some cases. Having gone through the recruiting process myself, it's difficult enough to find someone who's willing to take on the responsibilities for these kinds of roles without throwing too many obstacles in the way. Sometimes you need notarized signatures etc. - at least one of the accounts I set up properly required both of us be present physically at the same time - and remember this might be someone you literally never see and is never in the same location you are.
You can take some precautions, like by using a password manager with an "emergency" functionality to provide limited access to accounts, although I'm not sure that just using a password manager in any way at all might violate some of the more restrictive terms and conditions some firms might have come up with.