Bank say account closed all savings gone?

just a little input from me.

what stands out to me is the year 2002,
the euro change over.
it may have been that all accounts were "closed" due to the punt to euro swap, and all old accounts were given new account numbers.

maybe the staff you are dealing with were not around during or just after the changeover so they may not know of new account numbers for old punt accounts.

its only an assumption.

I’m not certain an application under the DPA will give rise to any relevant information. The obligation is that “[personal] data shall not be kept for longer than is necessary for that purpose or those purposes [for which it was obtained]". Retention periods are not specified in the DPA and it is a matter for the data controller to decide on the appropriate retention period. So personal data relating to the account holder could well have been destroyed, in compliance the DPA, after a short period [unless the bank is required to retain it for a longer period under some other statute or regulation]. Similarly with any back-up data, it would depend on the bank, but why would a bank retain back-up data for a long period, if there were no business reason to reconstitute the a/c?

However, under the Dormant Accounts Act 2001 http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/pdf/2001/en.act.2001.0032.pdf the bank is required to notify the account holder of its intention to transfer the a/c to the NTMA on behalf of the State. You should look at Section 2 Notification Procedures of the DAA and ask the bank to provide you with copies of all correspondence sent to the account holder, as provided for in the DAA . The dormant account section in the bank says the a/c was closed in 2002, but when? Was it closed before 31 March 2002 the date after which the bank is required to notify an a/c holder under the Dormant Account Act? Or earlier? If they say they did not write to the a/c holder because the a/c was closed before the prescribed date, ask them what evidence they have for this - which is the evidence you want on the a/c closure; otherwise they could be in breach of their obligations under the DAA.

You should help your uncle to submit a Data Protection request for a copy of all records and documents relating to the account and transactions on the account. Refer to microfiche and backups in your request, so they are obliged to search these. They can charge you €6.35 for this service.

44brendan said:

As a banker this all sounds very strange to me. I'm not as up to date with the laws and Central Bank regulations relating to deposits as I used to be. However, a deposit with a bank is not a debt, so the statute of regulations does not apply. All banks are obliged to hold documentation for a maximum of 6 years so the actual signed authority to close the account would not be to hand. However, all banks will have transactional information going back well before that period which will state how these funds were disbursed. Internal rules re withdrawals from dormant accounts are very strict and it is not easy to resurrect a dormant account without triggering some alarms internally. particularly if this level of funds is involved. Your uncles solicitor should now write a formal letter to the Bank HO stating the exact circumstances of the case and requesting full details of how the account was closed and what happened to the funds. The Bank will have this information available and I am surprised that it was not given to your uncle upon request.

Click to expand...

I thought that at the time of the Moriarity tribunal, a legal embargo was put in place on the destruction of banking records. Certainly I know at least one of the banks has destroyed nothing since then and has warehouses full of paper. I know that bank still regards the embargo as being in place.

The issue here may be that the bank cannot find the paperwork. Awful to say in 2014 but much of their records are still on paper either at the branch or in a physical warehouse