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

At a glance

Requirements one by one

Accounts covered

Under § 6301 includes checking, savings, certificate of deposit and share accounts. Its financial-institution definition includes banks, savings institutions and credit unions. The Banking Code payment directions below apply to the narrower institutions listed in its § 601.

How the designation is made

Under § 6301, the account form and deposit agreement establish one or more parties as trustee for one or more beneficiaries. The statute expressly says that mentioning payment to the beneficiary in the deposit agreement is unnecessary; a separate, independently significant trust instrument falls outside this account definition.

Owner and beneficiary rights before death

Under § 6303(b) makes the trustee the normal beneficial owner during life, subject to contrary account or deposit terms or clear and convincing evidence of an irrevocable trust. For joint trustees, their lifetime interests follow net contributions under § 6303(a), absent the stated evidence of different intent. A beneficiary becomes a party only after the account becomes payable through survival of the original trustee (§ 6301).

Joint trustee priority and beneficiary survival

Under § 6304(a), a surviving party to an ordinary joint account takes against the deceased party's estate unless the specified evidence shows different intent. For the trust account, § 6304(b) transfers the balance to surviving named beneficiaries at the death of the sole or last surviving trustee, subject to clear and convincing evidence of a contrary intent. If beneficiaries die first, it names the remaining survivor or survivors. Where that transfer cannot occur, § 6304(c) puts a deceased party's rights in the estate.

Shares among surviving beneficiaries

Under § 6304(b) names the surviving beneficiaries but does not assign an equal percentage to each. It expressly withholds later survivorship among beneficiaries unless the account or deposit agreement provides it.

Changing the account or using a will

The account form at a party's death determines whether § 6304's survivorship rule applies (§ 6305). Under § 6304(d) expressly bars changing a trust-account beneficiary designation by will.

Payment and institutional liability

For banks and other institutions covered by the Banking Code's § 601, § 605(b) requires satisfactory proof of the last trustee's death and payment on the appropriate beneficiary's order or receipt. For jointly named individual beneficiaries, payment is on all their orders unless a previously agreed arrangement provides for the survivor; successively named payees follow their named order. The institution may pay a minor directly unless the deposit arrangement provides otherwise. Under § 6302 leaves institutional rights and liability to law outside Chapter 63.

What trips people up

Under § 6304(b) distinguishes survival before the trustee's death from survivorship after beneficiaries receive the account: the former is a statutory transfer rule, while the latter requires express account or deposit terms. Also, Chapter 63 decides property rights between account parties, while Banking Code § 605 gives a narrower group of institutions their payment instructions.

Common questions

Can the trustee name a nonprofit? For institutions within Banking Code § 601, § 605(a)(ii) expressly allows an account held by an individual as trustee for a nonprofit organization.

Must the bank see a death certificate? Banking Code § 605(b) calls for satisfactory proof of the trustee's death; it does not specify a particular document in the text.

Statutes and sources

The verbatim statutory passages and official chapter and act URLs appear in the statutes entries above; each was accessed October 8, 2026.