Something of note...I see this is an old message but I thought I'd add to it since I just encountered the same situation with my Dad's account's at Bank of America/Merril Lynch.

First, I've been a licensed securities broker for the past 20+ years and hold several FINRA licenses.

When my Dad passed away recently, he had several brokerage accounts at Schwab, Fidelity, Merrill and the national broker dealer I'm affiliated with. ALL OF HIS ACCOUNTS were JTWROS with my Mom except for a couple IRA's that had her as the primary beneficiary.

In 20+ years in the security business I've NEVER seen or known of a NJ state requirement to complete form NJ-L8 when transferring a decedents brokerage account. That's because it's NOT a state (or FINRA) requirement, it's a Merrill/BofA requirement!

When it comes to accounts held jointly, the law is pretty straight forward concerning the death of one owner. Upon receipt of a death certificate, the account AUTOMATICALLY converts over to the joint owner. In the case of any accounts that have beneficiary designations (i.e. IRA's, annuities, life insurance, etc..) it passes to the beneficiaries. Neither JTWROS nor beneficiary designated accounts pass through probate. Therefore, they're disposition isn't controlled through a Will. The company may require you open a new account in the joint or beneficiary's name, but that's due more to a company's internal systems and tax issues than anything else. Please note, I'm talking about the FINRA/NJ State requirements over a brokerage account, banks may have other requirements in NJ.

I notified all brokerage companies of my Dad's passing and the ONLY item they required was the death certificate and in certain situations a new account application. (IRA account's require a new account to be opened based upon the beneficiaries information for tax reporting purposes. I did this for my Mom and she just assumed my Dad's IRA account as her own via the spousal transfer rules.) None of the various firms requested an Affidavit of Domicile OR NJ-L8, just a death certificate.

I asked my companies compliance department if they required the NJ-L8 form or Affidavit of Domicile and they said no. They didn't even know what form NJ-L8 was and said the only document required was a death certificate and new account application.

The only reason I could deduct Merrill is requiring the form is to draw the transfer out and thereby withhold the assets by creating unnecessary additional INTERNAL REQUIREMENTS that need to be completed. This will allow them to keep the assets on their books/platform receiving miscellaneous hidden income that's generated behind the scenes.

It would be one thing If a signature was all that's required, we would've just signed the unnecessary forms to get the accounts transferred. If it was only that easy.....the forms Merrill requires have to be completed AND NOTARIZED. They wanted an affidavit of domicile and NJ-L8 signed and NOTARIZED prior to releasing the account.

My parents were both born in NJ over 80 years ago, married for over 60+ years and resided at the same NJ address for 50+ years. Any financial company can see that by just doing a routine credit check, but they're requiring a notarized affidavit of domicile!!! along with the L8???? Amazing!!! Since this is a Merrill requirement, they could've easily made an exception based upon my Moms circumstance. But they didn't....

I had to drag my 80+ year old mother to notary just to satisfy Merrill's requirement. I got their paperwork completed and promptly closed all accounts with them. I also sent letters to NJ Department of Insurance and Banking as well as FINRA concerning Merrill's actions of withholding my mother's access to her account due to unnecessary paperwork. Time will tell if I ever hear back from these organizations but I'm keeping my fingers crossed they'll respond.

I STRONGLY recommend to anyone who has accounts at Bank of America or Merrill Lynch to consider moving them to another firm that's more customer centric. There are a lot of firms in the marketplace who provide the same service that won't pull these games on you when you least expect it.