Getting money out of a deceased persons bank account

After all this time the account may no longer exist, but even so this is a matter for a lawyer to deal with. Please see my reply to your other topic posting.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

Yes the account exists. The bank just does not want to release the money. This case has nothing to do with my other posting.

Regardless of any connection (or not) the process is going to require a lawyer since the banks here simply will not release funds from accounts of deceased accountholders without the proper legal authorization, they can't!

My respect for lawyers is midly said "limited". I told a lawyer to solve this about 15 months ago... Nothing. this is why I wanted to understand myself how it works so I can challenge him why he did not do this and that. If you do not kick People here in their butt they do not move.

Did you ever stop to think that maybe the reason that the lawyer hasn't been able to resolve the situation for you in such a SHORT period of time is because of the extreme complexity of the situation and of the laws here in Brazil????? God sakes man, some civil cases here take over ten years to resolve, simply because of court backlogs.

Even Brazilian families have great difficulties in resolving these kind of issues quickly. It can take years even in the simplest inheritance cases. You can't compare the situation to any other country on earth, where things actually work the way they're supposed to! This is Brazil, things here simply don't work, not the way they're supposed to - or any other way for that matter.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, Expat-blog Experts Team

You can only get money out of a bank account of a deceased person with a judges order. An inventário must be opened in court in order to get the funds from the bank account.

How Long does it take the judicial system to do this? LetŽs say from the Point in time the lawyer has all required papers.

Given the incredible backlog in the judicial system in every part of Brazil there is no accurate way to predict a timeframe. It could take years. Courts in this country only operate half of the day, the rest of the day is just paper pushing

I'm amazed the state didn't take the money by now.

Actually it did, via Inflation. the easiest way for all governments to tax people without the majority understanding what is happening.

Why did you wait so long to so this?

The better question would be why my wifeŽs family waited so long. But the answer to this is very simple: They are Brazilian, so they give up at the first obstacle just to have an excuse to do nothing.

Knut34 wrote:

How Long does it take the judicial system to do this? LetŽs say from the Point in time the lawyer has all required papers.

Brazil is a very large country. It depends on the court and the backlog. Days to years.

True. Let´s assume the city is not huge and the judge remotely knew the dead Person, it cannot be so complicated. Again, for me the "it is complicated" Argument is simply the standard excuse for most people here to sit on their but and do nothing or to avoid conflict.

Hi Knut34,

First off, it is very likely that any sitting judge who would have remotely known someone who died 20 years ago wouldn't either already be retired or deceased too. So don't count on that coming in to play in helping make this any less difficult.

Once the lawyer has all the necessary papers to draw up the "inventário" and petition the court for an order to release the funds it would likely take a year or maybe even more to work its way through the "snail-like" legal system in this country. If you do manage to get any of the funds back it certainly is not going to happen anytime SOON.

Cheers,
William James Woodward, EB Experts Team