DO YOU HAVE A SAFE DEPOSIT BOX?
Many people own Safe Deposit Boxes of various sizes at banks. These boxes are often used to keep valuable items such as jewelry, rare coins, collectibles, or valuable papers such as original wills. Such boxes can be very useful. For example, some people own expensive jewelry that is rarely worn. Scheduled insurance for such items on a homeowner’s policy can be very expensive. It can be more cost effective to safely store such jewelry in a Safe Deposit Box in a vault at a bank branch.
Some people keep their original will in a Safe Deposit Box. It is very helpful to have your original will available at the time of death. In Arizona, the original will can usually be filed with the court for an informal probate administration. That means the entire probate process can be completed without ever having a court hearing. If only a copy is available, a hearing must be held to prove the original was not revoked or destroyed – not always easy to do and always an additional, otherwise unnecessary, cost. And sometimes that can lead to a person’s intents and desires not being followed. So keeping an original will in a Safe Deposit Box is not a bad idea.
One concern, however, is how to access the box after death. In Arizona, and most other states, you can list more than one person as owner of the box. The survivor, then, will be able to get the contents. What if the last owner has died? Arizona has a statute, A.R.S. 6-1008, that allows two bank employees to open a box and look for a will if anyone claiming to be interested in the contents presents himself to the bank. The complete statute says:
In the event only one lessee is named in the lease of a repository and the lessee dies, or on the death of last surviving lessee under a tenancy in two or more names, the repository may be opened by two employees of the lessor in the presence of any person who presents himself and claims to be interested in the contents. The employees may remove any document which appears to be of a testamentary nature and deliver it to any person named in the document as executor or to a clerk of the superior court. The employees may also remove any policies insuring the life of the deceased lessee and deliver them to the beneficiaries named in the policies. All other contents of the repository shall be retained by the lessor and shall be delivered only to the person legally entitled to them.
A new development, however, is that one of the largest banks, Chase, has begun phasing out Safe Deposit Boxes. As of December 2021, Chase stopped allowing customers to rent boxes. And as branches close, the boxes will close, and those box-holders will not be able to reopen a box at another Chase branch. The boxes, they claim, lose money for the bank.
It is likely other banks will follow suit. In fact, it has been getting more difficult to even find a Safe Deposit Box as bank branches close at record numbers because of the increase in online banking. New branches are often smaller with out room for the large vaults needed for the boxes. Brick and mortar banks are becoming increasingly scarce. So, what if you don’t have Safe Deposit Box? Well, you can keep it home. Some people have a home safe they can use. I have even heard of keeping it in the refrigerator.
Maybe some entrepreneurs will create freestanding facilities to rent similar boxes. Maybe the burgeoning self-storage industry will begin installing vaults and rent boxes. Time will tell.
