79 year old mother refused to withdraw money from the bank! The court ruled that the unmarried son passed away unexpectedly, leaving a deposit of 410000 yuan in the bank | Zhao | The court

My son passed away unexpectedly, and the mother, the only legal heir, was refused by the bank when she went to withdraw her son's deposit. On June 4th, the topic # 79 year old man's attempt to withdraw 410000 yuan from his deceased son's deposit was rejected # went viral on Weibo's hot search.

The notarization process is complicated, and the elderly choose to sue the bank

Zhao, who is 79 years old this year, just experienced the pain of sending someone with white hair to someone with black hair a few months ago. Her son Sun drowned and passed away suddenly without leaving any will. Sun is unmarried and has no children. His father also passed away in 2021, and his mother Zhao is his only legal heir. Sun had a deposit of 410000 yuan in the bank, but Zhao was refused to withdraw money from the bank. Therefore, Zhao entrusted a lawyer to sue in court.

Zhou Xiaoli, the presiding judge of Acheng District Court in Harbin City, said, "This is an elderly lady. Her son has 13 certificates of deposit in the bank, totaling over 400000 yuan. The bank refused to allow her to withdraw this money. The bank is also protecting all legal heirs, and cannot determine that the plaintiff is the only legal heir of the deceased son."

In general, when a relative of a deceased depositor comes to withdraw funds, the bank's usual practice is to have the depositor go to a notary office for notarization or resolve the issue through a court judgment. Zhou Xiaoli said that she had also advised the plaintiff to go through the notarization process, but the complicated proof stumped Zhao, who was already 79 years old.

Zhou Xiaoli explained, "The plaintiff said that the notary office needs to provide a lot of proof, some of which cannot be obtained by the people themselves, so they filed a lawsuit in court. We also looked at some of her evidence, some of the evidence from the village committee, and some of the evidence provided by the police station. These pieces of evidence prove that the deceased had no spouse or children, and his father passed away before him. Based on these pieces of evidence, we conducted further verification."

After on-site investigation and visits, the court finally determined that Zhao was the sole legal heir of his son Sun, and ultimately ruled that the bank would pay the deposit under Sun's name to the plaintiff Zhao within five days.

Zhou Xiaoli said that whether Zhao was the sole legal heir of Sun was the main concern of the bank and notary office at that time. However, if all parties did not actively perform their duties, the money could not be withdrawn, and the legitimate rights and interests of the plaintiff Zhao would be in an unsolvable deadlock. "The bank thought at the time that if the notary office or court issued this certificate, the bank could withdraw the deposit, so they had no responsibility. The notary office also had this concern at the time. To be honest, we were under a lot of pressure at the time, but if everyone thought this way, the money wouldn't be able to be withdrawn."

Although he won the lawsuit, the plaintiff Zhao voluntarily bore the case acceptance fee of 3725 yuan and also paid the lawyer's fees. Zhou Xiaoli said, "The plaintiff thought at the time that if the bank agreed to withdraw the money, she would voluntarily bear the litigation costs. The bank always insisted that it was not at fault, believing that it was to protect the rights of other legal heirs. If the bank could review these, it should be the most convenient."

Many netizens have expressed that the bank's approach is a normal procedure.

Netizens expressed understanding but also suggested simplifying the process.

How to solve the difficulties encountered in legal inheritance?

The complex self certification process not only increases the litigation costs of the parties involved, but also increases the workload of grassroots courts. In the era of big data, with the trend of gradually breaking down departmental barriers and opening up, can we safely and conveniently solve the difficulties that people encounter when legally inheriting their heritage?

Dou Dongchen, a lawyer at Beijing Dishi Law Firm, said that the relevant procedures are currently quite rigid. "Whether it's deposits or property inheritance, it's quite rigid. For example, inheriting property, there are only two ways to transfer ownership. The first is through notarization, notarizing your inheritance rights, and taking the notarized documents to the housing management bureau to handle the transfer. The second is through court judgments."

Dou Dongchen stated that the current notarization process is difficult to handle in special circumstances. "There are several specific conditions for a notary office, and once they are not met, they will not handle it for you. In many cases, there is no dispute, only a missing proof, such as a death certificate, household registration book, or proof of kinship, is to prove that my father is my father. However, the court is not the only one that needs to complete the preliminary burden of proof. The court must make a judgment, which becomes the burden of proof for the judge to find."

Ma Li, a senior co partner and lawyer of Beijing Deheheng Law Firm, believes that the registered residence information management system of the public security organ can easily query citizens' kinship information. As long as the party concerned obtains the certificate issued by the public security organs, the bank should handle the withdrawal business for the relatives of the deceased depositor. "Banks have to recognize the judgments of notary institutions and courts, which is a bit rigid and too harsh."

However, in practical operation, public security organs generally do not issue a certificate of legal heir. Some lawyers have also stated that banks require parties to go through notarization or litigation to resolve deposit inheritance issues, which is beyond reproach. The advantage of resolving through litigation is that if a child born out of wedlock suddenly appears and claims their rights, the court also has an error correction procedure, that is, execution reversal.

Is there still room for improvement in "reducing certification for convenience"?

Litigation resolution undoubtedly brings a certain burden to the parties involved. Is there still room for improvement in reducing certification and facilitating convenience? Xiao Yi, a partner and lawyer at Shanghai Yingtai Law Firm, said, "There must be space. In the future, all the data in the real estate center may be connected to the public security department and the bank. In this case, I estimate that there may be no need for the elderly to advocate in the future. The bank will directly tell you that your son is dead and you are the only heir. I will give you his deposit."

In March of this year, the Ministry of Justice released ten typical cases of continuously promoting "certificate reduction and convenience". This includes a bank quickly handling small deposit withdrawals for deceased depositors for customers. As mentioned in the relevant background information, for a long time, due to the requirement of notarization for the deposit inquiry and withdrawal of deceased depositors, the procedures are lengthy and cumbersome, especially in cases where the deposit amount is small, the inheritor has borne unreasonable time costs and notarization expenses.

In recent years, relevant departments such as the China Banking and Insurance Regulatory Commission and the People's Bank of China have successively issued multiple documents related to the inquiry and withdrawal of deposits from deceased depositors. The withdrawal process has been simplified from "notarization+bank review" to "bank review+personal commitment". The limit for non notarized withdrawals is set at 10000 yuan, and banks are allowed to increase it to no more than 50000 yuan, making it convenient for the public to handle deposit inheritance.

Will the relevant departments further increase the quota in the future? Professor Zhang Hong from the Law School of Beijing Normal University told reporters that simplifying the deposit withdrawal process for deceased depositors requires seeking a balance between inheritance convenience and protecting deposit security. But first, we should break down more information barriers between departments, especially promoting information sharing among public security organs. In the era of big data, there are no longer technical challenges.

Zhang Hong said, "In fact, the most authoritative information about identity is definitely the public security organs. The relationships between people are controlled by the most real and accurate information. Is it possible for them to form a cooperative relationship? The sharing of information can still have some operational space and possibilities."

Source: Daily Economic News, CCTV