"has several retirement accounts (sep-ira) in certificate of deposits at bank"

It's rightfully the other way around. The CDs are the investment vehicle in the accounts. CDs, stocks, bonds, ETFs, and even money market are some of the investment options.

This is a type of churning. You don't have "CD accounts." You have account(s) and invest the funds into something, including CDs. The available options depend on where the account is held, of course. A Bank will force multiple accounts, which generates more fees.

One way to handle this is to initiate a Pull, not a Push, transfer. The broker to receive can start the request for the transfer.

If your taxpayer client submitted a timely request, and the CDs got renewed anyway, they should be able to have the early cancellation fees waived and suffer no penalty.

In the future, they should ask if in-kind transfers can be done, as well.