- 12 - sets forth the joint account holders’ respective owner- ship rights to the funds deposited in the account. Consistent with this statute, and as stipulated in this case, Floy Christensen was at all times the owner of all of the funds in the joint account. Wash. Rev. Code � 30.22.130 preserves Floy Christensen’s ownership rights to the funds in the joint account, notwithstanding that a financial insti- tution properly made payment of the funds to her chil- dren as joint account holders. * * * We find the estate’s reliance on certain statutory provi- sions of the laws of the State of Washington to support its position that the transfers of funds represented by the November 1995 checks and the January 1996 checks constitute gifts made by decedent to be misplaced. None of those provisions, which are part of the Financial Institution Individual Account Deposit Act (Act), see Wash. Rev. Code Ann. ch. 30.22 (West 1986),3 grants authority to a person named on a joint bank account who does not own the funds in such an account to make a gift of all or a portion of those funds on behalf of the actual owner of those funds. As the estate accurately indicates, Wash. Rev. Code Ann. sec. 30.22.050 (West 1986) provides for the creation of joint bank accounts, and Wash. Rev. Code Ann. sec. 30.22.090(2) (West 1986) provides that funds on deposit in a joint account belong to 3All references to the Revised Code of Washington Annotated are to that Code in effect on the date of decedent’s death and on the various dates on which the November 1995 checks and the January 1996 checks were written and subsequently paid by Seafirst Bank.Page: Previous 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 Next
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