How Do I Write a Letter of Instruction to Northern Trust?

Send it to Northern Trust's estate/claims department: Northern Trust bank, brokerage, and wealth-management accounts: The Northern Trust Company, 50 South La Salle Street, Chicago, IL 60603. Northern Funds mutual-fund accounts: Northern Funds, P.O. Box 75986, Chicago, IL 60675-5986 (overnight: Northern Funds, 333 South Wabash Avenue, Dept. W-38, Chicago, IL 60604; fax 312-557-0411). Mortgage servicing error notices and requests for information: The Northern Trust Company, P.O. Box 92992, Chicago, IL 60675.. You can reach the department at 1-800-388-5316.

Northern Trust lists these among its required documents: Certified copy of the death certificate (order several — each institution and transfer agent keeps one); Government-issued photo ID for the beneficiary, executor, successor trustee, or surviving joint owner; Account numbers or enough identifying information for Northern Trust to locate the accounts; Letters Testamentary or Letters of Administration when the account was individually owned with no beneficiary. The prepared letter includes an enclosure checklist drawn from Northern Trust's recorded requirements.

Northern Trust does not publish a claim timeline. Timing turns on the registration: a joint or TOD/POD account transfers on the death certificate and beneficiary ID alone, a trust account passes to the successor trustee under the trust's terms, and an individually owned account with no beneficiary waits on Letters from the probate court. Where Northern Trust is the named executor or trustee, the settlement runs on the probate court's and the tax calendar's schedule, not on a claims clock.

Northern Trust provides its own letter-of-instruction form. We complete that official form with your information; you print, sign, and send it.

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.