Payable-on-Death Deposit-Account Beneficiary Rules in Kentucky

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Accounts and designation

Kentucky’s account definition covers checking, savings, certificates of deposit, share accounts, and similar deposits; its financial-institution definition includes banks, savings institutions, and credit unions (§ 391.300(1), (3)). A POD account is payable to original payees in life and one or more named POD payees after the original payees die (§ 391.300(10)-(11)). Account terms and the deposit agreement identify the payees. Business and separate fiduciary accounts are outside the multiple-party-account definition (§ 391.300(5)).

Credit unions also have a separate trust-account provision: shares and deposits may be held by a member in trust for a beneficiary, or by a nonmember in trust for a member beneficiary (§ 286.6-385(1)). That provision permits minor beneficiaries and discharges the credit union for payments to the account holder (§ 286.6-385(2)-(3)).

Rights during life and after death

The POD account belongs to original payees during their lives, not to POD payees (§ 391.310(2)). Joint original payees’ lifetime beneficial interests track their net contributions absent clear and convincing contrary evidence (§ 391.310(1)). These beneficial-ownership rules do not govern the institution’s authority to pay under account terms (§ 391.305); it may pay an original party on request (§ 391.330).

When one original joint payee dies, the survivors take as against the estate unless clear and convincing written evidence at account creation showed another intent (§ 391.315(1)(a)). After the last original payee dies, surviving POD payees take. If one payee dies first, the other named survivors take (§ 391.315(2)); if no payee survives, the other-cases rule transfers the decedent’s right through the estate (§ 391.315(4)). When several payees survive the original owners, § 391.315(2) does not assign a numerical percentage to each. It bars a later right of survivorship among them unless the account or deposit agreement expressly provides one.

Change, will, and bank payment

A party able to request present payment without another party’s joinder may alter the account form or stop or vary payment by a signed written order received during life and not countermanded by that party (§ 391.320). A will cannot change a POD designation (§ 391.315(5)). The statutory transfer follows the account contract rather than testamentary disposition (§ 391.325).

The institution may pay an original party on request. To pay a POD payee, or the representative or heirs of a payee who survived the original owners but later died, it may require proof that the payee survived every original payee (§ 391.340). Payment under the statutory payment sections discharges the institution even if beneficial ownership differs, but protection ends after the written stop notice described in § 391.350. That discharge does not resolve claimants’ ownership dispute.

What trips people up

Death order matters. The heirs of a POD payee who survived the original owners may seek payment under § 391.340. If that payee died before the last original owner, § 391.315(2) instead gives the balance to surviving named payees.

Kentucky does not impose a later right of survivorship among several payees automatically. Express account or deposit-agreement language is required (§ 391.315(2)).

Common questions

Can a will change the POD payee? No. Section 391.315(5) bars that change, while § 391.320 supplies the signed lifetime order route.

May a minor be a credit-union trust beneficiary? Yes. Section 286.6-385(2) expressly permits beneficiaries under eighteen.

Does payment by the institution decide an ownership dispute? No. Section 391.350 separates discharge of the institution from the beneficial rights of the parties and successors.

Statutes and sources

The verbatim statutory passages and current official PDF URLs appear above; accessed October 8, 2026.