What to do when a Redwood CU account holder dies

Because RCU designates pay-on-death payees at the Member number level, not per account. Under Section III.E of the Membership Account Disclosure, POD payees are named on your Membership Application, and Section III.F.4 states that every account other than an IRA or HSA held under a common Member number carries the same ownership and POD combination. If you want one child on the certificate and another on the checking account, you must complete a separate Membership Application and RCU assigns you a new Member number. POD payees are not allowed at all on UTMA or other fiduciary accounts, and if a newer Membership Application drops the POD designation, RCU treats the account as passing to your estate.

When an RCU account has no POD payee and no surviving joint owner, the personal representative normally provides Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration issued by a California court with an original raised seal. If the estate qualifies as a small estate, RCU accepts a notarized affidavit under California Probate Code Section 13100 in place of court letters. The personal-property limit is $208,850 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025, per the Judicial Council's DE-300 form (courts.ca.gov), and the figure is adjusted for inflation, so check the current DE-300 before you file. Mail the affidavit and a certified death certificate to Redwood Credit Union, Attn: Account Services, PO Box 6104, Santa Rosa, CA 95406, or bring it to a branch -- RCU photocopies documents and returns your originals, and every branch offers free notary service to notarize the affidavit.

RCU addresses this directly because California is a community property state. Section III.F.8 of the Membership Account Disclosure says either spouse may open an account in their own name without the other's consent and designate any POD payee they wish, but the surviving spouse may have a right to their community property interest in the account, and that interest, if asserted, reduces the amount transferring to a non-spouse POD payee. RCU does not inquire into members' marital situations and will not referee the dispute: a surviving spouse must assert the claim directly against the POD payee. Consult a California attorney before the funds are paid out.

RCU's IRAs are administered by Ascensus, so the payout runs on their timeline rather than the branch's. Give RCU the certified death certificate plus each beneficiary's birthdate, Social Security number, mailing address, phone, and email. Once that information is in, beneficiaries receive letters from Ascensus in roughly two to three weeks and complete the enclosed Beneficiary Payment Election form, returning it to RCU or to Ascensus. An RCU IRA cannot be retitled into a revocable trust while you are alive -- a trust can only be named as beneficiary -- and RCU's own disclosure (Section III.F.6) recommends consulting a tax or legal advisor before naming POD payees on an IRA because of the tax consequences. HSA and Coverdell ESA accounts each use their own separate death-beneficiary form.