How Do I Write a Letter of Instruction to Beacon Pointe?

Send it to Beacon Pointe's estate/claims department: Beacon Pointe Advisors, 24 Corporate Plaza Drive, Suite 150, Newport Beach, CA 92660. You can reach the department at (949) 718-1600.

Beacon Pointe lists these among its required documents: Certified copy of the death certificate — one per custodian holding an account; Government-issued photo ID for the claimant; The custodian's own transfer / distribution / inherited-IRA / estate-registration forms (Schwab, Fidelity, SEI Private Trust Company, Pershing, or Raymond James — Beacon Pointe has no death-claim form of its own); Certification of Trust plus the successor-trustee provisions (trust-titled accounts). The prepared letter includes an enclosure checklist drawn from Beacon Pointe's recorded requirements.

Set by the custodian, not by Beacon Pointe. A TOD or named-beneficiary transfer typically completes in a few weeks once the custodian has the certified death certificate and its own signed forms; a trust account moves once the successor trustee is documented; an account with no TOD and no trust waits on Letters from the probate court and can take months. Accounts at two custodians run on two independent clocks.

Beacon Pointe accepts a letter you write. We draft it for you, addressed to Beacon Pointe's verified claims department with the required enclosures.

It depends on the capacity you are acting in. An executor or administrator encloses Letters Testamentary (when there is a will) or Letters of Administration (when there is not); a successor trustee encloses a certificate of trust; a successor under a small estate encloses that state’s small estate affidavit. The prepared letter lists the proof-of-authority document for your role alongside the institution’s required documents.

A letter of instruction is the written request an institution asks for when settling a deceased customer’s account. It identifies the decedent and the account, states the capacity you are acting in, and tells the institution what to do with the account.