Delaware Code Title 6 Sec. 4-405 – Death or incompetence of customer
(a) A payor or collecting bank’s authority to accept, pay, or collect an item or to account for proceeds of its collection, if otherwise effective, is not rendered ineffective by incompetence of a customer of either bank existing at the time the item is issued or its collection is undertaken if the bank does not know of an adjudication of incompetence. Neither death nor incompetence of a customer revokes the authority to accept, pay, collect, or account until the bank knows of the fact of death or of an adjudication of incompetence and has reasonable opportunity to act on it.
Terms Used In Delaware Code Title 6 Sec. 4-405
- Account: means any deposit or credit account with a bank, including a demand, time, savings, passbook, share draft, or like account, other than an account evidenced by a certificate of deposit. See Delaware Code Title 6 Sec. 4-104
- Customer: means a person having an account with a bank or for whom a bank has agreed to collect items, including a bank that maintains an account at another bank. See Delaware Code Title 6 Sec. 4-104
- Item: means an instrument or a promise or order to pay money handled by a bank for collection or payment. See Delaware Code Title 6 Sec. 4-104
- Knowledge: means a person's actual knowledge of a fact, rather than the person's constructive knowledge of the fact. See Delaware Code Title 6 Sec. 17-101
- Person: means a natural person, partnership (whether general or limited), limited liability company, trust (including a common law trust, business trust, statutory trust, voting trust or any other form of trust), estate, association (including any group, organization, co-tenancy, plan, board, council or committee), corporation, government (including a country, state, county or any other governmental subdivision, agency or instrumentality), custodian, nominee or any other individual or entity (or series thereof) in its own or any representative capacity, in each case, whether domestic or foreign. See Delaware Code Title 6 Sec. 17-101
(b) Even with knowledge, a bank may for 10 days after the date of death pay or certify checks drawn on or before that date unless ordered to stop payment by a person claiming an interest in the account.
5A Del. C. 1953, §§ ?4-405; 55 Del. Laws, c. 349; 70 Del. Laws, c. 86, § ?4;