DH and I thinking of putting our bank accounts in joint names

It does seem to make sense if there are no children involved.

Personally DH and I each had our own accounts and paid into a joint ‘bills’ account. After he died it was seamless at the bank they advised me to close my acc and his and transfer everything to the joint acc and his name removed, that way I didn’t have to transfer any Direct debits. It worked for me.

Yes, we do a joint account for bills and joint outings and expenses, but keep our own personal accounts as well. He doesn’t need to see my frivolous purchases and I don’t need to know how much he’s spent on yet another camera upgrade?

There are implications

Should one of you be diagnosed with dementia the bank can put a stop on the account until they are satisfied with PoA.

Also, if your savings are in joint names they are deemed to be s[;it 50/50. Should you have £100k in joint acc savings and one of you needs care then the person with a care need is deemed to have £50K. If their care costs £20K pa then the joint account is reduced to £80K - ie £40k each. So, in effect the person without the care need has contributed £10K.

Not sure if they are still available but I had a 3rd Party Mandate on my Mum's account which meant I could operate it but wasn't a named person on the account.

Similarly with houses in joint names rather than those held as tenants in common.

AgeUk have really good, downloadable, fact sheets.

And, consider getting PoA which can be done on line rather than via a solicitor.

I like my bit of pension in my own name. When buying presents or ordering flowers on line (at prices Himself would think of as shocking!) I couldn’t be doing with the ‘ ‘Ow Much‼️‘ at my purchases. He is very generous with family whereas I like buying for friends too.

His pensions are bigger than mine so all the bills come out of our joint account (with his money). Poor man. You’ve gotta feel for him.
?

We have 2 joint accounts.

I have one of my own with about 46 pence in it

Mr. Nula doesn't have one . Unless he's hiding it from me!

Make sure that you both know the passwords though. Friend of mine was widowed at 50. She knew nothing at all. Caused no end of problems.

She also didn't know the passwords for utility bills and statements etc

Have always had a joint account since marrying nearly 49 years ago. Never had ‘yours’ and ‘mine’ money. He’s never queried what I spend on things, and vice versa.
Luckily money is something we don’t fall out about.

Same here Calendargirl As my DH worked away, most financial decisions were mine and I was responsible for paying all the bills and credit cards. Very big purchases meant a bit of a discussion but we both understand the limits.

Everyone of our bank accounts are in joint names. DH's work involved a lot of travelling to out of the way places for indefinite times for many years before mobile phones etc, so I needed access to all accounts because I needed to be able to pay his credit card account etc. It also meant, if one of us fell under a bus, they had access to all sources of ready money.

Savings and investments are all in seperate accounts in the name of one or the other of us.

Joint accounts will only save you getting probate, if you live in a property you do not own and you savings are no more than you would keep in a current account. Once you own a property, even if in joint names, probate will be required.

As kittylester said, you need to consider a Power of Attorney for both.

We have joint account and have had this since the day we wed. He always earned more than me in the early days but I have caught up somewhat in the last ten years. Surely if one of us died the account would stay in the others name? I have personal savings in my name but class it as our nest egg for later.

We have a joint account for paying the bills, and always have had. We also have our own individual accounts.

My mum opened a joint account with me after my dad died. I had nothing to do with it while she was alive - it was all her money - but she wanted me to be able to pay for her funeral etc.

I was able to access the account when she died, but was only allowed to withdraw half of it until probate had been granted.

Monica, that's not the case. We owned our house jointly, and by the time my husband died after a long illness, we had all our cash assets either in my name or in the joint current account. This money automatically became mine when he died, and so did the house. I rang and spoke to the probate office and they told me there was no need for probate as everything now belonged to me. So although my husband left a valid will, I never had to show it to anyone. I think I did have to re-register the property to have my husband's name removed from the title deeds, but the will wasn't needed for this, just (I think) the death certificate.

Same here calendargirl

Thanks very much everyone. Some really excellent advice there and issues/implications that I'd not considered.

A big one for me is LPA is I had thought that if everything was in joint names LPA would not be needed - when it turns out that the joint would be frozen if either DH or I no longer had mental capacity.

Another big one is the funding issues around social care if either of us ever had social care needs.

I think DH and I need to have a rethink on this one.

Thanks so much again

grannyticktock Thank you for that, I understood that if an estate exceeded about £25,000 a probate form needed to be completed and submitted, even if it was decided that probate was not required.

I think it was to do with the dangers of tax fraud.

We’ve always had a joint current account.

I used to have savings a/cs in my own name - for tax purposes, dh usually earned more so it made sense - but it was always ‘our’ money.

oops...typo alert

'joint would be frozen' should of course read 'joint account would be frozen'

fingers faster than brain here.

We’re the same as you Calendargirl.
We both trust each other to not make too many frivolous purchases.

Same as Calendargirl; once married we had joint accounts, there was never any his or her accounts. Never argued about money, it was just 'ours'. When DH died the bank just changed the account to my name, no problems.

We have always been the same but my point above stands - there could be implications as far as care costs are concerned and to split your accounts later on could be seen as deprivation of assets.

FYI - I recently had to do probate for my late mum. Which involved her flat and money (all under 200k) so not huge amounts.
Submitted the probate paperwork on line. Got a instant received reply and within 15 mins another email, saying granted with corresponding paperwork, astonished to say the least!
I know nothing to do with banks but wanted to put that out there as still amazed!

We had joint bank accounts from the very start of our married life. We had PofA to each other (and our children) from about the age or 50. Our savings (not vast!) were in joint accounts initially, but eventually we put them into separate accounts.

We decided to divide the savings with me having more than him. This was a reasoned decision as it looked probable that he was the most likely to be first to need care of some sort in the future. As it happened we guessed right on that score, so when he needed care, social services could only take into account his savings when assessing him for contributions to the cost. Mine were ignored - indeed they were not even allowed to ask if I had any. This meant that when he died last year I was left with a bit of a cushion to fall back on - all his savings were gone, having been spent on his care, but mine were still intact.

Our joint bank account and PofAs meant that, when he became so ill and when he died, life was very simple for me in terms of finances. I had full access to our current account funds (as it was a joint account), to my savings and also to his, as they were in the form of premium bonds and I had his account number and was able to simply go online and take money from his bonds to pay for his care.

There was no need for probate, as it was all so simple.

If you jointly own a property it is worth finding out whether it is as "tenants in common" or "joint tenants" - if it is the latter then ownership automatically passes to a surviving spouse. I believe things are slightly more complicated if it is the former.

All these things are worth sorting now - I cannot tell you how much difference it made to not have to worry about accessing money when my OH needed care and when he died.

The only delay was over me getting a share of his NHS pension as his widow. He only had a small pension as he had to leave the NHS in his early 40s because of ill health, but I had assumed I was entitled to half of that when he died. And as it turned out that is what happened. But it was an anxious time for me for the first few months as I did not know whether I was to be the beneficiary or not. They would not tell me this and froze his pension initially. This anxiety could have been avoided if we had talked about who he had assigned his pension to after his death. I assumed that it was me, but had to wait a while to have that confirmed. So....it might be worth discussing that now and making sure that you are the assigned beneficiary or you could be a bit on limbo when one dies. It was an anxious moment.

From the day we got married we have had join t accounts. We trust each other to spend sensibly and never fall out over money.

Can I suggest that whatever you do you do have a joint bank account so that there is some accessible money when one of you dies. My mother had no cash when my father died and the bank had to give her a loan so she could shop, very distressing. My sister and I did a shop for her just to get over the first few days. My father had always transferred money to her account when she needed it.