our 1st joint account

lozandcraig

We have just had our aip via natwest and are currentley looking for our first house. We have 2 seperate bank accounts which we will keep, but we are looking at opening a joint bank account. We currently have a savings account with tesco but the rate is poor at the moment. Does anyone have any suggestions were we could go to move our joint savings to a joint current account with a good interest rate in which our mortgage payments/bills will be coming out of.
Any help is gratefully received

jonesMUFCforever

For convenience consider opening an account at one of the two banks you already have accounts with.

Bunny_Mad

Hello.
How soon are you thinking of buying?

I ask for 2 reasons:
1) if you start applying at a few different banks for joint accounts,saving accounts etc, this will all show up on your credit file & although its not a bad thing to be doing, the autoscore systems (which decide whether or not you are 'safe bet' for a mortgage) would pick up on the searches carried out by other Banks when you applied for an account with them. And little glitches like this can slow things down or at worst delay them until the bank is satisfied that you are a 'safe bet'.
2) If you are buying very soon & you are using your savings they arent going to make much. If you arent planning on buying very soon, why not put them in an ISA. Especially the Regular Saver Isas on offer (if you dont already have one.) Tax free intrst & you can get at your cash next April if you want it.

Do you both have accounts at the same bank?
If you are keeping these for your individual incomes & both paying into a 'joint account' to pay the bills/mortgage, it would be worth staying at the same bank as money is transfered much quicker 'in house'. Yes I know there are 'Faster Payments' now, but on the 3 occasions I have tried to use it (with different banks) in the past month, only on 1 occassion was it possible!)

Check out Martins tips for best paying current accounts, he also covers the decent saving accounts they have. Which one you go with is all dependant upon how much is going to be paid in each month & what other products you want from them.

Another tip is sometimes you can get a slightly better mortgage rate if you have one of these current accounts which you pay a fee for each month. Im not sure how many are about now as Im out of touch, but they are worth considering.

I hope this has helped in some way.

Good luck with the house hunting.

Fire_Fox

Some banks will not allow you to have a single name current account and a joint name current account open simultaneously. Here is the article on current accounts:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts

HockeyDuo8083

Hiya,

Well done and good luck with house buying; it is so stressful!

Anyway form personal experience we opened our joint ac after our mortgage went through and using OH's bank. We were advised this by our FA which turned out to be a good thing.
You really want to limit the number of credit searches on either of your files when going through the house process.

We are with BOS and get £5 per month if we pay in £1k per month which we do. Was easy to set up in branch an only took 10mins. I only had to show ID.

Good luck, hope everything works out well for you.

jonesMUFCforever

Fire_Fox wrote: »

Some banks will not allow you to have a single name current account and a joint name current account open simultaneously. Here is the article on current accounts:
http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/banking/compare-best-bank-accounts

Care to mention any banks?
It sounds preposterous to me that any bank would refuse you a sole and a joint account if you want one.

toughtobeabug

When we were buying our first house we just added my partner to my exisisting account to make it a joint account then once the mortgage was processed opened another single account for me at same bank limiting the credit searches.

Fire_Fox

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Care to mention any banks?
It sounds preposterous to me that any bank would refuse you a sole and a joint account if you want one.

It was a few years ago but Abbey National I think. One of the reasons I defected back to Alliance & Leicester IIRC.

jonesMUFCforever

Fire_Fox wrote: »

It was a few years ago but Abbey National I think. One of the reasons I defected back to Alliance & Leicester IIRC.

Which is now the same bank - Santandar - so if what you say is still true you might be on the move again if you want another account?

getmore4less

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

For convenience consider opening an account at one of the two banks you already have accounts with.

Also be aware that if the joint account gets cleaned out and put into debt then they can just take money from the single account.

I can be better to have the joint account place neither of you currently backnk with to avoid possible issues should there be a split.

Fire_Fox

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

Which is now the same bank - Santandar - so if what you say is still true you might be on the move again if you want another account?

I am now divorced so no joint banking! I have two current accounts in my name alone - A&L for the £100 and Co-op for the student overdraft.