Many advisors think that the IRA custodian will act promptly when dealing with these matters. However, many of these custodians are not familiar with all of these new rules and tax laws and will consider them an “exception.” They will often run these “special cases” through their legal department and it often takes a lot longer than you might think in order to finalize all of the paperwork. It often takes three months or longer for the IRA custodian to transfer the accounts and get everything retitled properly. This is especially true if you have multiple IRA accounts. Therefore, it is wise to make the decisions and final changes regarding the splitting of the IRA as soon as possible after the person passes away in order to give the IRA custodian enough time to process all this paperwork.
