Consumer complaint received 2015-07-27
Company: HUNTINGTON NATIONAL BANK, THE
State: WV
Product: Bank account or service
Sub-product: Checking account
Issue: Account opening, closing, or management

Complaint:
I can not close my deceased uncle XXXX XXXX XXXX 's accounts at Huntington Bank because they will not recognize my unique position. I was Representative Payee, Power of Attorney, Medical Power of Attorney, and Executrix of my uncle 's small monetary holdings. He passed in XXXX 2015 at the VA nursing home. When I went to the XXXX County Courthouse in XXXX, WV in XXXX, I understood in this case that I could just proceed to follow the will without the lengthy probate process. My uncle was never married, no children, no property. All I needed to do as Executrix was pay the bills which I had been doing for years ( my uncle was in the Veteran Nursing Home in XXXX, WV at the time of his death ) and disburse the funds according to the will. These funds by will, were to be divided XXXX ways between his XXXX siblings ( or their families if they had passed first ). This I have done with approximately {$21000.00} of the total approx. {$30000.00} that existed at the time of death. My problem now is that when I went to close the Huntington Bank accounts ( one was VA administered through me, one was personal and Social Security administered by me ) and place the approximately XXXX left at Huntington into the estate account at XXXX XXXX Bank to disburse to the heirs, Huntington froze the accounts. This is not consistent with logic. After Huntington was notified of my uncle 's passing in XXXX they continued to honor my checks in XXXX and XXXX but now they can not? Apparently for some reason, even though he passed, I was authorized to write checks for those months, but now I can not close the account. Had I just written checks, it appears that I would have been fine, but there is some policy in place that prevents my closing the accounts and now I am told they are frozen. This is quite a predicament. I am well past the 30 days from demise for a probate process ; and the bank will not honor any of the means I have to prove that I am the responsible party to administer and distribute the funds. Since I have hit this roadblock, I have made appointments at the courthouse and with an attorney to see if they have any alternate advice, but I ca n't understand why there is not a process at this bank to verify my documents and proceed, as the insurance company and the other bank has been able to acknowledge. When I talked to the VA and the Social Security client services, they supported me in my belief that there should be a way to acknowledge my documentation and the federally appointed position I was in to administer my uncle 's fiduciary interests. 
Since this roadblock occurred last Friday XXXX XXXX, I have talked to numerous levels of a number of organizations, even representatives at Huntington Customer Service were surprised at the opposition I was meeting. I was told it is a Huntington WV policy, NOT a WV law, and that the policy was administered by each branch of Huntington, I was even told by a Huntington team member to go to a different branch! 
And now that I am being drug into a policy war, it seems, I am submitting this complaint in hopes that a reasonable policy can be put in place for this extremely rare circumstance that I am apparently in and also I hope for a personal remedy for my family. 
Furthermore, this situation which is taking enormous amounts of my time, reminds me to point out the inconsistency in which things have been handled to date. Also, I want to point out that this branch was actually at fault for recommending and initiating a bank product for my uncle that a bank examiner voided out. That is why the major part of my uncle 's money was no longer at Huntington Bank in the first place. 
Please find XXXX pages of documentation.

Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation