safety deposit boxes

[black bunny]

Was watching a drama the other night and the character, a widow, went to a bank, and accessed her late husband's deposit box - you know the kind of thing, deep down in the basement of the bank,lots of locking and unlocking of doors .etc.
It got me musing - how does this deposit box thing work in real life? Can anyone have one in any bank? If you had one and you died, and you didn't have a next of kin whom you'd told about its existence, when would the bank have a right to open the box? If ever? Are there examples of boxes which contain stuff that have been left undisturbed for years and years? The very thought fascinates me!

[spudqueen]

Twenty odd years ago I worked in a Bank in the town centre. Down in the vaults we had loads of boxes, not the neat ones in cabinets you see in American films, just locked metal boxes which people brought in themselves. They had to pay a yearly charge to keep them there which would have showed up on their bank statements and there was also a record kept of who owned which box (I think they were numbered). When a customers death was reported to us we had a book which went round every department recording details of what was held for that customer, so I'm sure that the next of kin would have been informed as to the existence of the box. People would come in from time to time and request their box, they were then shown to a private room where they opened it without any staff members being present, only the customer had the key, we didn't hold them. They rang a bell when they were finished and the box was placed back in the vault. There was one box which fascinated me, it was the size of a trunk, but made of metal and had been there about twenty years. I used to think that there was a dead body in it, but I think that someone would have noticed the smell! I don't know if it was ever collected as I was transferred from that branch.

[black bunny]

thanks for the info Spudqueen.