Is it good to be together?

Ary—who’s Dutch and so prudent—tells me his future French wife (they’re due to be hitched in December) wants them to have a joint bank account. What do I think? It’s a practical system and, remember, it can be cancelled at any time. Briefly, the joint account functions like any other. That is, either holder can use it in any way he or she pleases—for instance, depositing and withdrawing funds, writing cheques, setting up standing orders and so on. If one holder dies, incidentally, the account isn’t blocked as happens with individual accounts. 

And the downside? Well, normally there’s equal responsibility for the state of the account so if it’s in deficit both holders are called upon to deal with the overdraft as they are for any cheques issued without sufficient funds to cover them—and they also both incur the consequent sanctions (unless, when the account was opened, only one person was designated responsible for chèques sans provision). Ary should remember, too, that if his wife decides to run off with a Latvian chef she could empty their joint account before doing so and he’d get a nasty surprise…

From Reporter 94 - Dec 2002

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