My father passed away on Nov. 20th. His retirement funds are automatically transferred to a savings account in the beginning of each month. I wasn't sure if he would get the full amount for December so I went to the bank and saw that it was there. The teller asked me how my father was doing and I told her that he just passed away. She gave her condolences. I then asked her if there was something that I needed to do, i.e. bring in his death certificate or any kind of document for the bank. She said no but suggested that I keep his name on all of the accounts for the time being.

About a week later I went online to look at the accounts and noticed that my father's money was "reversed" back to their retirement programs.

My mother and I are also on these accounts and we never received any notification that they were going to do this. I understand that by law they are required to do this but the only reason I found that out was because I called the retirement programs asking why my father's money was returned and they explained that it was the bank that did it.

By law, is it legal for a bank to withdraw money from the way that I explained above without prior notification?