"Not sure that is true? Once the spouse passed away the joint automatically went to the survivor and is no longer a joint asset."

Uh, what? "Sorry, my husband might owe $50,000 on that credit card, but I am keeping all of our $100,000 that is in our joint checking."

That's taking a bit of a leap over beneficiaries, pay/transfer on death, ROS vs TIC, common law State or community property State, type of financial asset (retirement, ordinary checking, annuity).

The point is, to know what is available and applies, and my favorite word... some of this stuff is discoverable. You really need to separate that the Executor responsibilities are not the same as being the spouse.

It doesn't state the IRA was fully distributed, for instance.