do banks have to keep customer agreements?

Grimbal

We'd like my husband's bank to find a copy of the agreement he signed with them (for a bank account) quite a while ago. It's been about 20 years since he opened the account - does anyone know if the bank has a legal obligation to keep signed agreements on file whilst the product is still active? They are saying that as it's been so long since he opened it up, they would have difficulty finding it.

Does anyone know if the bank has to keep a copy of a customer agreement whilst the account is still active please ?

Many thanks

Liz

Weirdlittleman

I wouldnt imagine so.
In 20 years the terms will have changed many times over, your husbands continued use of the account along with their continued providing of the contract would be deemed acceptance of term changes etc so the original signed agreement is far suceeded and has little use and given there is no legal requirement to keep it now it could have been disposed of or more likely archived to an extent it would be prohibitive to find.

Why does your husband want it?

Grimbal

thanks for the reply. He would just like to check that he signed up for an account that required a monthly payment. He doesn't remember doing so. However, and as you mentioned, the monthly statement that gets sent out clearly states that a charge has been paid - he had just always assumed that that was an overdraft charge (:eek:). It's only recently that he's cleared the o/d & realised he was still paying for it. We're fairly newly married & are just now in the process of streamlining our accounts, so now I have my hands on the reins these things will (hopefully!) not happen again!

So, to summarise, it's not so much that the T&C have changed, more that he wants to be sure that he signed up for the chargeable product in the first place.

thanks again for the reply, much appreciated

Weirdlittleman

Whether he signed up for a chargeable account would mean nothing anyway. The account could have changed to fee bearing at any point and his continued use of the account would be acceptance.

Banks quite regularly change accounts to fee bearing "reward" accounts and it is up to the customer to decline this and change not for them to get it accepted.

Banks terms always allow accounts to change etc with notice

Grimbal

Weirdlittleman wrote: »

The account could have changed to fee bearing at any point and his continued use of the account would be acceptance.

Banks quite regularly change accounts to fee bearing "reward" accounts and it is up to the customer to decline this and change not for them to get it accepted.

Banks terms always allow accounts to change etc with notice

Wow, really?! Never realised that. I had always assumed that if they wanted to change you to a fee-paying a/c then you would've needed to physically sign your acceptance of that fact. Learn something new everyday! Looks like we're going to just have to write this off to experience, and that hopefully he will have learned to be a bit more financially aware (if not, I'll be keeping an eye on things anyway !:p )

thanks again for the replies, been very useful

Liz
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