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Sep 14, 2026
A bank account frozen after death in Louisiana does not necessarily mean the money is lost or that the bank has decided who owns it. Usually, the bank has learned of the customer’s death and has stopped withdrawals until someone provides legally sufficient authority.
What happens next depends on how the account was titled. A solely owned account, a joint account, a payable-on-death bank account, and a transfer-on-death brokerage account do not all follow the same rules.
A Power of Attorney Does Not Continue After Death
Families sometimes try to use the deceased person’s debit card or power of attorney to pay immediate expenses. That can create problems.
Under Louisiana Civil Code article 3024, a mandate—the Louisiana term for a power of attorney—terminates when the principal dies. Even a broad or “durable” mandate does not turn the agent into the estate representative after death. Our discussion of when a Louisiana power of attorney is not enough explains this transition in more detail.
Once the bank receives notice of death, it may restrict a solely owned account until the succession representative, heirs, or legatees supply the documents required for that account.
What Documents Can Release a Solely Owned Account?
The correct document depends on the succession procedure.
In a judicial succession, an executor or administrator may use certified court documents establishing the representative’s authority. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure article 3211 gives the succession representative possession of succession property and the duty to enforce obligations owed to the estate. A judgment of possession may later establish which heirs or legatees receive the account.
Some estates qualify for a small-succession affidavit instead. Louisiana Code of Civil Procedure article 3434 provides that a qualifying affidavit can serve as sufficient authority for a financial institution to deliver property described in the affidavit to the listed successors. Louisiana increased the small-succession threshold to $200,000 effective August 1, 2026, but the estate must still satisfy the other statutory requirements. Read more about Louisiana’s current small-succession threshold and when an affidavit can replace a court proceeding.
The institution may also require its own affidavit, tax form, indemnity, or certified copy. A brokerage firm may require a medallion signature guarantee. Those institutional requirements do not determine inheritance rights, but they can affect how quickly the request is processed.
A Joint Account Is Not Necessarily a Gift of the Money
Being listed on an account may provide withdrawal authority without proving that the added person owned all the funds.
In Succession of Carolyn Gauthier Bargeman v. Bargeman, 22-817 (La. App. 3 Cir. 9/20/23), 371 So. 3d 1125, the decedent added two relatives as joint account holders so they could help pay her expenses. The evidence showed that the decedent supplied the money, reported the interest, used the accounts for her expenses, and had not named the relatives as POD beneficiaries. The Third Circuit held that the succession owned the funds.
The court also explained that a statute protecting a financial institution when it pays a joint account holder does not necessarily resolve the ownership dispute among the account holder and the succession. In other words, the person who can withdraw money is not always the person ultimately entitled to keep it.
A Louisiana Bank POD Account Must Be Properly Created
Louisiana Revised Statutes 6:314 authorizes certain payable-on-death bank accounts. Under the current statute:
- The depositor must sign account records showing the intent that the funds belong to named beneficiaries at death;
- The beneficiaries must be specifically named in the bank’s records; and
- The account title must include language such as “payable on death to,” “in trust for,” or “as trustee for.”
A will naming someone as beneficiary does not create a POD account. Likewise, telling a banker or family member what should happen is not a substitute for properly completed account records.
That lesson appears in Dunlap v. Community Bank of Louisiana, 55,695 (La. App. 2 Cir. 6/5/24), 387 So. 3d 952. The depositor and his daughter allegedly discussed adding her to accounts or arranging for her to receive them at death. However, the pleadings did not establish an executed POD agreement. The Second Circuit rejected her attempt to hold the bank responsible under the alleged facts and emphasized the absence of written documents creating the POD arrangement.
The practical point is straightforward: intention alone may not overcome incomplete account paperwork.
A Valid POD Designation May Still Have Limits
A properly created POD account generally directs the bank to pay the named beneficiary even if the will identifies someone else. However, R.S. 6:314(F) expressly preserves claims involving forced heirship, collation, and funds due a spouse, heir, legatee, creditor, or another person with rights against the deceased depositor’s funds.
Therefore, payment by the bank and final ownership among competing claimants can be separate questions. The statute may protect a bank that pays according to the account designation while leaving the beneficiary exposed to a properly supported claim from someone else.
That distinction surfaced in Estate of Viola v. Guillory, 22-497 (La. App. 3 Cir. 3/1/23), 358 So. 3d 605. A POD beneficiary received funds from three certificates of deposit. Another estate later tried to collect those funds as a creditor of the depositor’s estate. The Third Circuit affirmed dismissal because the ownership issue had not been properly placed before the court and the asserted creditor remedy did not yet apply under the case’s procedural posture.
The Louisiana Supreme Court denied review. However, a concurrence accompanying the writ denial, Estate of Viola v. Guillory, 2023-C-00463 (La. 9/26/23), 370 So. 3d 721, stressed that a writ denial has no precedential value. The concurrence also questioned whether R.S. 6:314 merely protects a bank and permits access to funds, or whether it creates a separate method of transferring ownership. It expressly left that issue unresolved.
The Legislature has also recognized that these questions need further study. In 2026, the Louisiana Senate adopted Senate Resolution 133, creating a task force to examine POD and TOD accounts and recommend possible revisions. No resulting change had become law when this post was published.
Brokerage TOD Accounts Follow a Different Louisiana Statute
Louisiana adopted the Louisiana Uniform Transfer on Death Security Registration Act effective January 1, 2022. It applies to qualifying securities and securities accounts—not every bank account or asset with “TOD” typed on a form.
The statute contains several Louisiana-specific limitations:
- R.S. 9:1711.2 requires the owner to execute the registration in authentic form or by private signature in the presence of two people.
- R.S. 9:1711.4 states that the registration is not a lifetime or testamentary donation and allows the owner to change it without the beneficiary’s consent.
- R.S. 9:1711.5 permits the security to be registered in the surviving beneficiary’s name after death but says that re-registration “has no effect on ownership.”
- R.S. 9:1711.6 protects a registering entity acting in good faith, yet preserves ownership disputes involving the succession representative, surviving spouse, heirs, legatees, forced heirs, and creditors. Written notice of an objection can also affect the registering entity’s statutory protection.
That framework means a TOD beneficiary may obtain control of a security account while another claimant still litigates ownership or seeks the account’s value or proceeds.
Recent Louisiana Brokerage Cases Show Why the Date of Death Matters
Three appellate decisions addressed brokerage TOD forms created before Louisiana’s 2022 statute took effect.
In Succession of Schimek, 19-1069 (La. App. 4 Cir. 6/10/20), 302 So. 3d 78, the Fourth Circuit upheld the TOD arrangement based partly on contract principles, clear evidence of intent, and the absence of a forced-heir or community-property issue.
The Second Circuit reached a different conclusion in Succession of Angus, 54,180 (La. App. 2 Cir. 1/12/22), 333 So. 3d 555. It treated Louisiana’s recognized nonprobate transfers as limited statutory exceptions and refused to enforce the brokerage TOD form at issue.
Then, in Succession of Catchings, 22-CA-460 (La. App. 5 Cir. 9/6/23), 370 So. 3d 1251, writ denied, 2023-C-01342 (La. 12/19/23), 375 So. 3d 410, the Fifth Circuit also found a pre-Act brokerage TOD form invalid. The court acknowledged evidence that the decedent wanted the beneficiary to receive the account, but it applied the law in effect on the date of death. Because the decedent died before the 2022 statute, the new Act did not rescue the designation.
These cases should not be read as eliminating current statutory TOD registration. Instead, they show why the asset type, execution formalities, account documents, date of death, will, community-property rights, and competing claims all matter.
What Should a Family Do When the Bank Freezes an Account?
First, stop using the deceased person’s debit card, online credentials, checks, or power of attorney. Next, ask the institution—in writing—how the account is titled, whether it has a named beneficiary, and which documents it requires.
Then determine whether the funds pass under a valid POD or TOD arrangement, belong to a surviving co-owner, or form part of the succession. If ownership is disputed, preserve the account agreements, signature cards, beneficiary forms, statements, source-of-funds records, and communications with the institution. Do not assume that the person who withdrew the money has won the ownership question.
Field Law helps Louisiana families identify the correct succession procedure, obtain authority over frozen accounts, and address disputes involving joint owners and beneficiary designations. If a bank or brokerage account remains frozen—or someone has received funds that may belong to the estate—contact Field Law to schedule a consultation and determine the next step.
