I think the problem arose because your relative went to the adviser of the current account and tried to transfer it that way. Of course there was opposition on his part to losing an account. The easier way is to go to Fidelity, set up the transfer IRA account in the name of deceased, for benefit of survivor, and Fidelity will handle all the paperwork for the direct trustee to trustee transfer of the assets.
Given that these are American Funds funds, which are loaded funds sold only through advisors, and (as far as I can tell) you can't even get a form without talking to an advisor, things are rather constrained. In other words, to do it the way you say (which I agree I'd prefer in normal circumstances), that means my relative has to sign up with some AF-approved advisor, get an IRA-BDA account created, and then do the transfer. However, if it is done as a "push" instead of a "pull", AF will send the money to Fido without my relative having to sign up with some AF advisor.
-- Rich Carreiro snipped-for-privacy@rlcarr.com
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