Is it legal to have 2 bank accounts one in maiden and one in married

wannawin13

Just a quick question as above, got married and prob easier to have household bills come out of one and day to day money out of my other, one in new married name and keep one in maiden name

dunstonh

You can have as many bank accounts as you like but you should use your married name.

alanq

I don't think that there is any legal requirement to use just one name (provided one is not using multiple names to deceive). It may make life a lot simpler though for credit references and the like to use just one name.

rdp1980

So long as there is no intention to deceive, you can use multiple names and have bank accounts etc in all of them. Obviously you would need the appropriate ID to get the accounts open to start with so we can't all go round with bank accounts in the name of Mr M Mouse.

How it works from a credit referencing point of view is an interesting question though...

Hungerdunger

Aren't there tax implications in using different names? (I'm assuming that banks send details of interest earned to HMRC).

shadowspy24

what about if you have 2 student accounts?

rdp1980

How Many Names Can a Person Have?


In the UK, it is lawful to have as many names made up in whatever way, as a person wants. They can be combined, they can be separate. They can be a professional name, typical of artists and many professional women, e.g. Mrs Cherie Blair and pay tax on her writing, Mrs Cherie Booth can pay tax on her work as a barrister, but she will have only one personal tax allowance.

To be named Frances David Beckham Jones is as equally lawful as going about your business as Frances Jones in your florists shop, and David Beckham when you put on your football kit at the weekend. We could change Frances’ name to Francis and suddenly we have an apparent gender change. Francis the man with a florist shop, and David the Sunday morning footballer does not seem that strange an idea to us, as Frances the woman and David the man. But both are perfectly within the law.

I got that from http://www.pfc.org.uk/node/1576 which mainly seems to deal with trans-gender people using different names. Not exactly what I was looking for but came up on a Google search!

bryanb

Hungerdunger wrote: »

Aren't there tax implications in using different names? (I'm assuming that banks send details of interest earned to HMRC).

I believe banks only provide details of accounts where gross interest is paid, they have started requiring NI numbers for these accounts so that will identify.
Where tax is deducted at source it's up to taxpayers to declare if they pay more than basic rate tax

LittleVoice

I have shareholdings and accounts using the family name of my father and family name of my husband. I was traced to receive a pension payment of a scheme I belonged to before I was married because my NI number hasn't changed!

FairyElephant_2

I've actually argued this point before, on several occasions - including once with a member of bank staff who insisted that 'legally' I had to change my name because I got married!

I knew that I was right, but got my solicitor to confirm - there is no legal requirement to change your name if you don't want to.

I have changed my name with the tax office, and on our joint account, as that was easiest to do, but I have not changed my passport or drivers license. The main reason being that I had 7 years left on my passprt and would have lost most of them for the 'privelege' of changing my name....so I still travel in my old name - just have to remember this when booking tickets etc!!!

Actually I have bank accounts in both names - one of which I WANTED to change but the bank in question have 'lost' my 3 requests with copy marriage certs, so I can't be bothered any more! They don't seem to have a problem, and tax my savings just as successfully - LOL!

slopemaster

FairyElephant wrote: »

I've actually argued this point before, on several occasions - including once with a member of bank staff who insisted that 'legally' I had to change my name because I got married!

Yes, me too
I have kept my own name for all purposes but had all kind of officious jobsworths tell me (wrongly) that I have to change it