A panel of the Appellate Division, First Department, said a decedent’s daughter could not recover $500,000 from her father’s account at a Manhattan brokerage, despite her father having directed she be made a beneficiary of the account before his death.

A unanimous panel agreed that Sonia Arroyo-Graulau could not recover the money from Merrill Lynch Pierce, Fenner & Smith, now owned by Bank of America.