Category Archives: Joint Accounts

Undue Influence challenges involving Wills and Joint Accounts

Posted on September 20, 2012 by Kelaher, Van and Moriarty

   In a recent decision (August 10, 2012), In The Matter of the Estate of Antoinette Zarrillo, Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division: Probate Part, Essex County, Docket No. ESX-CP-0108-2008, the Court dealt with the issue of undue influence with regard to the execution of the decedent’s Will and changes to beneficiary designations and co-owners of joint accounts.  The opinion also explains the different standards involved in proving undue influence with regard to Wills versus with regard to inter vivos transfers.     Here, the decedent died testate onJanuary 19, 2008and was survived by three sons.  The decedent’s Will, datedDecember 14, 2004, named her son, Joseph, as Executor.  Joseph was left the property and contents of decedent’s home as well as 45% of the residual estate.  Decedent’s other son, Nicholas, was left 45% of the residual estate and her other son, Michael, was left 10%.    The Will also contained an in terrorem clause which is a no-contest clause.     Joseph and his wife moved in with decedent after her husband died in 2000.   When the decedent executed her Will in 2004, her health had begun to falter.  At this time, she also changed the ownership and beneficiary designations on … Continue reading →

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General Rule: sums remaining on deposit at the death of a party to a joint account belong to the surviving party

Posted on August 29, 2012 by Kelaher, Van and Moriarty

   In the Matter of the Estate of Aurelia DeFrank, the Superior Court of New Jersey, Chancery Division: Probate Part,MercerCounty, Docket No.: 09-01870, revolved itself about a dispute amongst the estate beneficiaries regarding the ownership of non-probate assets.    By way of background, the decedent died onAugust 18, 2009.  She was widowed, but survived by two daughters.  The decedent executed an original Will datedJuly 12, 1999, and a copy of a Will datedMarch 21, 2002.  The latter Will was admitted to probate in formal form.     The decedent’s probate estate – which consisted of assets in the decedent’s name alone – totaled approximately $1,400,000 and was split between her two daughters in accordance with her Will.  However, during her lifetime, the decedent also established thirteen (13) joints accounts with the one daughter and not for the other.  The disputed joint accounts totaled $259,407.    A dispute developed between the daughters about ownership of the non-probate assets.  The matter centered on the joint accounts which were subject to the Multiple-Party Deposit Act (the “MPDA”), N.J.S.A. 17:16I-1 et seq.   The argument was that upon the decedent’s death the accounts became the joint owner’s sole property and not part of decedent’s estate.  The … Continue reading →

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Multi-Party Deposit Account Act and the law of Undue Influence

Posted on June 16, 2011 by Kelaher, Van and Moriarty

Recently, in the Matter of the Estate of Del Bagno, Superior Court of New Jersey, Appellate Division, Docket No. A-3789-09T2, the Court examined the interplay between New Jersey’s Multi-Party Deposit Account Act (N.J.S.A. 17:161-1 to -17) and the law of Undue Influence. Specifically, the case deals with the shifting burden of proof in such cases. The Multi-Party Deposit Account Act provides that where two individual jointly own an account, the surviving joint account holder is assumed to be the owner of the account when the co-owner dies. The presumption can be rebutted by clear and convincing evidence of a different intent at the time the account is created. Typically, the burden to overcome this presumption is on the challenger, i.e. the person arguing that the joint account was set up for convenience. However, where that party establishes that a confidential relationship existed between the survivor and the decedent the burden of proof shifts to the survivor to rebut a presumption of Undue Influence. In this situation, the survivor must prove that the joint designations were intended as a voluntarily gift and that the donor understood the legal effect of the transfer of assets into the joint account.

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