On 3/3/2011 9:22 AM, dpb wrote:
On 3/2/2011 11:52 PM, SteveB wrote:
"ELGY"lgpetersatcomcastdotnet wrote

I worked in a bank for over 40 years in California. It is true the
box is sealed upon the death of an owner. ...

It may vary 49 different ways from that.
...

And, it varies even in CA ...

California Probate Code Section 331

(a) This section applies only to a safe deposit box in a
financial institution held by the decedent in the decedent's sole
name, or held by the decedent and others where all are deceased.
Nothing in this section affects the rights of a surviving coholder.
...[goes on about the limitations in the particular case]...

So again to reiterate, not only do the rules depend on the State, even
within a given state it may (and does) depend on the details of the
particular situation.

The lesson to be learned is to find out what the law is in your own
state...

The second lesson is that sometimes even the institution doesn't
actually know the law and may be overly conservative as in the above
where the limitation apparently was attempted to be placed on any box
regardless of a surviving coholder or not. There may be some other
nuance/conflicting statute in CA law I didn't find, but nothing
contravening the above showed up in quick look-see that would preclude
the surviving legitimate coholder from having unfettered access to the
content of his box (think surviving spouse as most common instance).

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