Consumer complaint received 2023-10-18
Company: BANK OF AMERICA, NATIONAL ASSOCIATION
State: LA
Product: Checking or savings account
Sub-product: Other banking product or service
Issue: Managing an account
Sub-issue: Funds not handled or disbursed as instructed

Complaint:
I am requesting help because I believe Bank of America is guilty of breach of fiduciary duty and breach of Louisiana Law as well as FINRA and OCC rules for withholding the funds in my mothers IRA after she had passed away and by illegally holding many more beneficiaries ' funds in illegally created Trusteed IRA or TIRA products which are invalid under Louisiana Law. Under LA RS 9:1752, any inter vivos trust document may be made ONLY by authentic act ( signature in front of a notary ) or by signature in front of two witnesses which is then sworn to in front of a notary. XXXX TIRA Adoption Agreement has no notary block, so any TIRAs for Louisiana ( and possibly Florida ) customers are ALL invalid due to Improper Form. I brought this up to BofA and have received no answer in over four months ( with email proof ). 
Moreover, ML transferred my deceased mothers IRA assets with no notarized Trust Agreement into a TIRA account three days after she had ALREADY PASSED, in violation of her written IRA Beneficiary Designation and LA Law and Federal Regs as well as XXXX own written Traditional IRA Custodial Agreement and related Disclosure Statement, and their TIRA Trust Agreement and related Disclosure Statement. They refuse to release the funds to me and my brother as beneficiaries in order to not admit their colossal systemic failure of supervisory and audit procedures, which will result in us paying Trustee fees and a large tax impact when we receive the full amount after 10 years due to the SECURE 2.0 Act. 
My mother died on XX/XX/XXXX and my brother and I are XX/XX/XXXX beneficiaries of her Rollover IRA established with ML. Her Traditional IRA Custodial Agreement states that it governs the IRA you opened under the Client Relationship Agreement and describes the custodial responsibilities of Merrill Lynch. The Designating Beneficiaries section goes on to say that Once we accept your designation, it will govern distributions from your IRA after your death and After your death, your beneficiaries will have the same rights and responsibilities regarding your IRA as you do, including withdrawing any amount from your IRA in a single sum, installments, or in the form of an annuity. Most importantly, the Governing Law section clearly says determining the interests of beneficiaries will be governed by the laws of the state of your residence at the time of your death. 
Louisiana Civil Code CC935 states that beneficiaries are due their bequests immediately at the death of the decedent and CC936 goes on to say that as Universal Successors we are due that possession with no alteration in the nature of possession. We were beneficial owners of the IRA at the second of her passing, yet ML transferred the assets into the TIRA on XX/XX/XXXX and placed restrictions on their liquidation. BofAs own TIRA agreement explicitly states that the Trusteed IRA  is established when we accept your first contribution to the account, so by their own documents the account did not exist prior to her passing. It is also a tenet of US Law that an inter vivos trust is invalid if there is a lack of delivery of assets to the trust PRIOR to the death of the grantor. 
I have spent four months explaining these and more detailed violations to ML and BofA, and they have dragged their feet, not provided copies of the account documents when asked, not provided a Date of Death Valuation, transferred assets without a Transfer Instruction Form or Letter of Authorization. I can go into MUCH greater detail. 
I have : Email admitting TIRA was unfunded at death TIRA Agreement IRA Custodial Agreement Beneficiary Des Settlement data showing transfer date of XXXX FINRA Rules Violated : XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX, XXXX

Company public response: Company has responded to the consumer and the CFPB and chooses not to provide a public response
Company response to consumer: Closed with explanation