Also known as: POD account · payable on death account · POD · payable on death
Written by attorneys · grounded in primary & secondary sources — see below
A designation of a beneficiary in an account payable on request to one party during the party's lifetime and on the party's death to one or more beneficiaries. The designation may also apply to an account in the name of one or more parties as trustee for one or more beneficiaries when the relationship is established by the account terms and the only trust property consists of the sums on deposit.
Penelope Price opens a checking account at a local bank and adds a POD designation naming her niece Priscilla Parks as beneficiary. During her lifetime Penelope retains full control and withdraws funds as needed. Upon Penelope's death the bank pays the remaining balance directly to Priscilla without requiring probate administration of the account.
After Karen Myers dies, her surviving spouse Howard asserts an elective share claim that includes three POD accounts and an annuity payable to her daughters. The probate court must decide whether those nonprobate assets form part of the augmented estate subject to the elective share calculation. The court ultimately includes the POD assets because they were revocable by the decedent until death.
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A beneficiary under a POD designation holds no right to the sums on deposit during the lifetime of any party to the account. The beneficiary's interest arises only upon the death of the last surviving party.
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A later will cannot revoke or change a POD designation. The account contract controls the beneficiary designation and requires the specific procedure set by the financial institution.
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Divorce revokes a POD designation in favor of a former spouse unless the governing instrument, court order, or marital agreement expressly preserves the designation. The funds then pass as part of the decedent's estate.
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POD assets may be included in the elective share when they remain revocable by the decedent until death and fall within the categories of property the statute defines as part of the augmented estate.
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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…