For people of modest means who either have no Wills or else have Wills that contain no estate tax or trust planning, survivorship accounts are often fine. Survivorship accounts between a husband and wife are also OK where the estate plan is a "disclaimer plan" (in which the Wills provide that everything passes outright to the surviving spouse, except that if the survivor makes a disclaimer, the disclaimed assets pass to a Disclaimer Trust for the survivor). In addition, many couples have household checking accounts or other accounts that are intended to pass outright to the surviving spouse, and persons who want to make a specific cash gift may put the cash, etc. in a POD or other survivorship account. So long as the dollar amounts are relatively small, survivorship provisions in these situations generally do not cause a problem; however, the account holder must understand that the account will pass outright to the person(s) named in the survivorship provision (if he or she survives), and not to the person(s) named in the account holder's Will (including the Executor, who may need the funds to pay estate debts, taxes and expenses). In most other cases, survivorship accounts should be avoided.