I have gone through this with both my parents. In one case, I needed a death certificate to even get access to the will. (It was held by a lawyer, and at least some lawyers won't let just anybody see the will. I had to prove that I had the right to see it, which meant a death certificate plus being an executor on the will.)
With the will and a death certificate, I went to a bank. They wouldn't tell me anything about the account - not even the amount in it - because I hadn't gone through probate. Well, in that state, I didn't have to go through probate if the estate was less than $100,000. But without knowing how much was in the account, I didn't know if I needed to go through probate! They finally "bent the rules" enough to tell me that, yes, there was enough there that I needed to do probate.
So I applied for probate, which cost $500, and was a slam-dunk because nobody contested and the will said I was the executor. And then the bank would talk to me.
Joint accounts or a trust are much smoother.
Seems very scary, there might be so many things that he doesn't even know about. I tried searching for this, and it seems like there are billions of dollars left in dormant accounts because no one claimed it, majorly because the person's family don't even know how to access those or worse are not even aware about it.
I’m the beneficiary of all of their accounts. I reviewed where they have their accounts at. As long as I know where there accounts are, if it takes months to get to it - which isn’t the case since I’m the beneficiary, why does it matter? I don’t need their money.
However, they did make me a joint account holder on one of their accounts that had enough money in it to take care of final expenses.
Even if I did have passwords to their other accounts, I wouldn’t access them and start transferring money until it went through all of the level processes when they pass - aside from their joint accounts.
Of course joint accounts does require a fair amount of trust in your children.