Joint accounts treated as survivorship
Under W. Va. Code § 31A-4-33, joint deposit accounts payable to any owner are treated as joint tenancy with survivorship. Any owner can be paid from the account during their joint lifetimes, and a surviving owner or owners can be paid after another owner's death. Banks are released from liability for payments made before they receive a signed, written order from an owner telling them not to pay.
The mandatory creditor-exposure warning
Here's a genuinely distinctive requirement: for joint accounts opened on or after July 1, 1994, banks must give written notice to the account owners that a creditor of just one owner, using ordinary legal process, can reach the entire balance of the joint account — not merely that owner's proportional share. The same notice must also explain that any owner may withdraw, pledge, or encumber the whole account, unless a signed stop instruction is on file preventing it. Few states require the bank to affirmatively warn depositors, in writing, that opening a joint account exposes the entire balance to just one owner's individual creditors — this is a genuinely proactive consumer-protection feature built directly into West Virginia's banking statute.
A 2026 update: easier accounts for multiple fiduciaries
Effective June 10, 2026, a new law (Senate Bill 581) eliminated the requirement that the state Banking Commissioner approve the specific joint account forms banks use, simplifying that administrative process. The same law also clarified rules for accounts involving multiple fiduciaries — such as co-agents acting under a power of attorney or co-conservators — letting a bank pay or follow directions from any one or more of the named fiduciaries, including a successor fiduciary who provides proof of their status.
Trustee-labeled deposits work simply
If a deposit is made and labeled "as trustee for" a named person, and the bank receives no further written notice of different trust terms, the bank pays the deposit and any interest to that named person when the labeled trustee dies. This applies only where the bank genuinely received no other written notice describing different trust terms — a simple, low-friction mechanism for informal trustee-style deposits.
Real estate follows a related, but distinct, framework
The same basic survivorship concept extends to real estate under West Virginia's joint tenancy statute, though real property follows a genuinely different default: West Virginia statute actually abrogates automatic survivorship for real estate unless it's clearly manifest in the deed, the opposite structural default from the bank-account framework described here, where joint accounts are simply treated as survivorship by default.
Life insurance and retirement accounts
Life insurance and retirement accounts like a 401(k) or IRA follow the same basic beneficiary-designation rule: the named beneficiary receives the asset directly, outside probate, as long as they're alive when the owner dies. Either one becomes part of the probate estate only if no beneficiary was ever named, every named beneficiary predeceased the owner with no contingent beneficiary in place, or the policy or plan names the owner's own estate.