Money withdrawn from a deceased parent’s bank account in Italy: how heirs recover it

On death the parent’s assets pass to the heirs, and an heir can claim the assets that formed part of the estate at that moment. This is why the person who withdrew the money often argues that what left the account before death «is no longer part of the estate». The Court of Cassation has made clear that the argument only works for sums the parent disposed of personally; if the withdrawals were made by a child who was a joint holder, using their own powers over the account and without any act by the parent, a claim for repayment arises, and that claim forms part of the estate (Court of Cassation, Civil Section II, order of 28 November 2025, no. 31126). In that case a son had taken more than €570,000, shortly before his father’s death, from an account funded solely by the father’s income, and was ordered to pay it back into the estate.

It is different where the parent personally withdrew the money and gave it to a child. That is a gift (donazione): it is not repaid, but it is taken into account when the estate is divided and when the share reserved by law to close family members (quota di legittima) is calculated.

After death, the money in the account already belongs to the heirs. A power to operate on the account ends with the holder’s death (art. 1722 of the Civil Code); acts carried out before the attorney learned of the death remain valid against the heirs (art. 1729). A person entitled to inherit who withdraws money for themselves may also, by doing so, be deemed to have accepted the inheritance tacitly (accettazione tacita, art. 476), with consequences that extend to the estate’s debts.

Where the account allows either holder to operate alone, each joint holder can dispose of the whole balance as far as the bank is concerned (art. 1854 of the Civil Code). Between the holders, however, a different rule applies: the balance is divided in equal shares unless it appears otherwise (art. 1298). The Court of Cassation draws a precise consequence from this: no joint holder may take for themselves, without the other’s consent, more than their own half, and the rule applies throughout the life of the account, not only to the final balance. The parent’s consent is not presumed from the joint holding alone: the person who withdrew the money has to prove it (Court of Cassation, Civil Section II, order of 2 June 2026, no. 17483). In that case a son had written cheques to himself and transferred sums to his own accounts totalling more than €350,000; the money was treated as an estate asset to be divided with his brother.

Equal shares are only a presumption. The heirs can prove that all the money belonged to the parent, including by circumstantial evidence, provided it is serious, precise and consistent: it is not enough to show who physically made the deposits, the heirs must show that the sums were the parent’s. In the most recent decisions the courts gave weight to the source of the deposits (pension, rents, income from securities held by the parent alone), the absence of any deposit by the child, who had an account of their own, and a comparison between the two holders’ financial positions (Court of Cassation, Civil Section II, order of 5 March 2026, no. 5009; order no. 31126 of 2025).

If the presumption is rebutted, the whole balance falls into the estate, and everything the joint holder took for themselves without justification must be returned. If it is not, the joint holder keeps their half and must account for what they withdrew beyond it.

A power to operate on an account (delega) does not make the attorney a holder: the money remains the parent’s, and the attorney manages it on the parent’s behalf. Under the Civil Code, a person who manages another’s affairs under a mandate must account for what they did and hand over whatever they received (art. 1713). In proceedings to divide an estate, where the law requires co-heirs to render accounts to one another (art. 723), the court can order the child who held the power to produce an account of their management.

That is what happened in the case decided by the Court of Cassation, Civil Section II, on 24 October 2024 (judgment no. 27591). In a little over nine months before the father’s death, the account balance fell from about €125,000 to about €2,000; the daughter who held the power was ordered to return more than €131,000 of withdrawals that were not adequately justified to the estate. A list of payments with dates, amounts and descriptions was not enough: the details needed to check how the mandate had been carried out were missing.

Once the withdrawals have been shown, it is largely for the person who made them to explain why they were legitimate. If documented, the explanations that usually stand up are three:

• expenses for the parent: home care, care-home fees, medical treatment, medicines, household costs, with receipts, contracts and transfers linking each outgoing to the parent’s needs;
• their own money: in a joint account, deposits made from the child’s own income or savings, which reduce the parent’s share;
• a gift: the parent meant to benefit the child, and that intention has to be proved; it cannot be inferred from the joint holding. In the March 2026 decision, the gift argument, raised for the first time on appeal, failed partly because that proof was missing (order no. 5009 of 2026).

Where a gift is proved, the money does not go back into the account but enters the calculations for the division and for the reserved share. Timing also matters for the person who withdrew the money: defences have to be raised from the first-instance proceedings, because new issues cannot be introduced on appeal.

Imagine a widowed mother with two children who dies without a will. In her last years she lived in Milan with her younger son, who was a joint holder of her account with power to operate alone; the account was funded only by her pension and the rent from a flat she owned. Her elder son lives in London. At her death €6,000 remain in the account; the statements show, besides her day-to-day expenses, €150,000 transferred to the younger son’s personal account.

If all the deposits came from the mother, the equal-shares presumption is rebutted and the €150,000, unless the younger son justifies it, returns to the estate. The cash to be divided rises to €156,000: €78,000 for each son. The younger son already holds €150,000, so he must pay €72,000 to his brother. If he proves with invoices and transfers that €40,000 paid for his mother’s care, the sum to be returned falls and the calculation is redone on €116,000.

If, on the other hand, the younger son’s salary was also paid into the account, the presumption may hold: half of the balance is his, and the dispute turns on what he withdrew beyond his share.

1. Ask the bank for the records. Anyone who succeeds the customer is entitled to obtain, at their own expense and within ninety days, copies of the records of individual transactions over the last ten years (art. 119(4) of the Consolidated Banking Act, Legislative Decree no. 385 of 1993). You need the statements, the account agreement showing how the holders could operate, the power to operate, and the slips for transfers and cheques. Beyond ten years the bank is not required to provide copies, so it pays to act early.
2. Do not touch the account before deciding. Withdrawing money yourself may count as accepting the inheritance and complicate your own position.
3. Reconstruct money in and money out. On one side pension, rents, coupons and sales; on the other the parent’s expenses, month by month, alongside the dates of hospital stays or illness. In court this is the work of the court-appointed expert.
4. Ask in writing for an account from the relative who operated on the account, listing the transactions to be explained.
5. Attempt mediation. For disputes about inheritance and division of an estate, mediation is a precondition for bringing a claim in court (art. 5 of Legislative Decree no. 28 of 2010).
6. Bring proceedings, usually within the action to divide the estate, asking for an account and for repayment to the estate, and asking the court to order the production of any missing bank records (art. 210 of the Code of Civil Procedure).

In our work on Italian inheritance and estate division we start from the bank statements, including for heirs who live abroad: before raising any claim we check what the documents show, and we provide a written estimate before taking on the matter.