Question of the Week

Question: An executor/administrator wants to set up an account for the estate of a deceased person. Who must qualify for membership…the deceased person, the executor/administrator, or both?

Answer: The deceased person must qualify for membership; the executor/administrator of the estate is irrelevant in determining field of membership.

As you know, a credit unions can only set up accounts for persons/entities within its field of membership.  A legal opinion issued by NCUA explains that in order to establish an estate account, either the decedent or all the beneficiaries must be a member of the credit union. The membership of the executor/administrator is irrelevant.  In practice, credit unions likely won’t know the identity of the beneficiaries to an estate, so we are really looking to the deceased person in order to determine field of membership.

This generally applies to state chartered credit unions as well, since an account at a state chartered credit union must meet NCUA requirements in order to qualify for NCUA share insurance.