How Does a Pay-on-Death Bank Account Work in Florida?

Section 655.82 covers checking accounts, savings accounts, certificates of deposit, and share accounts. The account owners are called parties, and the people named to receive the funds at death are called beneficiaries. How these accounts relate to a will is covered in whether a beneficiary designation overrides a will.

While any party is alive, the beneficiary has no right to the funds. If there are two or more parties, the money belongs to the surviving party or parties when one of them dies.

When the sole party or the last surviving party dies, the funds belong to the surviving beneficiaries. If two or more beneficiaries survive, they take in equal and undivided shares. Unless a depository agreement written between December 31, 1994, and July 1, 2001, provides otherwise, there is no right of survivorship among beneficiaries after that point. If no beneficiary survives, the funds belong to the estate of the last surviving party.

There are limits. A pay-on-death designation in a multiple-party account without a right of survivorship is ineffective, and an account designated as a tenancy in common is treated as having no right of survivorship. The bank may pay a beneficiary once it receives proof of death showing the beneficiary survived all parties. This is one of several probate avoidance strategies used in Florida.