Nova Scotia Securities Commission investigates handling of estate
Jean Lewis has been trying for almost a year to access husband's TD Waterhouse accounts
The Nova Scotia Securities Commission is investigating TD Waterhouse after a complaint from a Tantallon widow who has been trying to access her husband's estate for almost a year.
Larry Lewis's will couldn't have been more clear. It repeatedly specified that wife Jean was the executor and the only beneficiary so there would be no problems when he passed away.
"Bad enough to lose your spouse and have the bank just put you right through the grinders," Jean Lewis said.
It was Jan. 31, 2014 when Larry Lewis passed away in the kitchen of their home.
He looked after the finances and in late February, Lewis went to the bank to try and figure everything out. She says that's when it got complicated.
As Lewis was trying to get information about her husband's accounts from TD, she was stunned when a bank official told her he'd left some of his money to another woman, and they even named the other woman.
"It implied he had another woman over there and left her the money,"she said. "Here I am grieving and I'm being told this."
Turns out the bank official was wrong and they later apologized for that mistake. Still, getting her husband's bank information remained a challenge. It took them months to release his last paycheck.
"If it wasn't for my own income, I wouldn't be sitting in this house talking to you,"Lewis said. "I would have had no money."
It was only after she complained to the NS Securities Commission in August that TD Waterhouse finally turned over all the documentation on Lewis' accounts.
It was then she discovered that stock purchases she'd made by phone in May had not been completed and the cash was sitting in an account.
During that time, the stock value had more than doubled, leaving her out approximately $7,500.
The bank has told her it will not reimburse her lost investment.
Once more the Securities Commission is investigating and Lewis says they've requested tapes of her phone conversations with TD Waterhouse.
CBC News contacted TD today and they said they are looking into the situation.