Demands of utility company add to widow's grief
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A reader from Ingram whose father died last month in Florida experienced a frustrating problem while helping her mother change brokerage and banking services, pensions, life insurance and various bills into her mother's name.
She said the most time-consuming of those changes "by far" involved the utility bills.
"Although they jointly owned their home, every utility bill was in my father's name only," she said. "Some companies only required that we provide a date of death, account number and a Social Security number to set up a new account or transfer the existing account."
But Broward County Water and Wastewater Services wanted more information than that.
Much more.
Inexplicably more.
The utility required a certified copy of the death certificate, a letter from the company that manages the mobile home park where her mother lives confirming that she is the homeowner and permission from the park to transfer the account into her name. It also wanted her mother come to its office with a government-issued photo ID such as a driver's license.
It gets worse.
When daughter and mother arrived at the utility's offices, they were told the account couldn't be put in the mother's name since the "Informant" listed on the death certificate was her son and not her. An "Informant" is the person who notifies the funeral home of a death.
Although her mother is listed on the death certificate as the surviving spouse and now is the sole owner of the mobile home, the utility refused to place the account in her name. It said it would make the name change only to the person listed as the "Informant."
"No amount of explanation or reason would change its policy," the daughter said. "My brother doesn't live in Florida and there's no reason for him to travel there to comply with something so apparently unnecessary."
So, daughter and her mother, exasperated at the thought of any further dealings with the mind-locked utility, gathered up their paperwork and left the bureaucrats to their red tape.
First Published January 28, 2010 12:00 am
