Bank Account for couples

robson19

lika_86 wrote: »

I second this, myself and my boyfriend have an AA Spend and Earn card with two cardholders, pre-paid so we both put money on each month and can each use it for food shopping, no financial link as it's not a joint account, he's a second cardholder and we get AA reward points (not loads but it's a bonus).

Thank you. This sounds like the kind of account we need!

fluffnutter

robson19 wrote: »

I am not sure what you mean? What kind of ramifications?

BitterAndTwisted is perhaps being a little cynical (or living up to their name!) but it's a valid point. If you have linked financial products and your OH does a bunk, gets into debt etc. then this will affect your own credit rating. It's always worth being aware of this no matter how much you trust someone.

RAS

robson19 wrote: »

I am not sure what you mean? What kind of ramifications?

A joint account dioes 2 things

1. Creates a financial link, so if one of you gets into financial trouble, it wrecks both your credit ratings.

2. Creates joint and several liability. This means that you both owe all the debt, not half each. It is not unusual here to hear about one party withdrawing a lot of money from a joint account, burgering off and leaving the other party to pay off the debt.

J&S affects rent if both names are on the agreement and Council Tax.

One lovely lady left the flat, leaving BF to pay all the rent for the rest of the contract. It was only when the bailiffs turned up that he discovered that she had been using the CT money he gave her to help "pay" her half of the rent. So having given her £700 for the CT, he was left with a £1400 bill for the year which he had to pay as well.

dizsiebubba

Hi OP, I am a little bit old fashioned and think that I love my OH so much (enough to choose to have a child with him) that if he decided to do a runner with my money...I wouldn't care about the money becuase I would be totally broken as a person.

We opened our joint savings account aged 18 and started saving for a deposit for a house (never got that far but thats a different story) and then opened our joint current account aged 19 ... in both of our families it is normal to have shared bank accounts...weirdly the only raletionships that have resulted in a divorce in my family were all couples who didn't have joint accounts and led selfish 'mine & yours' lifestyles (not saying this is true of all relationships but all the ones in my family it certainly is) and they never had joint accounts because they never did trust each other enough in the first place...

If you love each other & trust each other 100% and you are i n life together as a TEAM then I don't see why you wouldn't open a joint current account??? Life is so much easier with one...

But then I cannot find fault with my partner or in my relationship so am not cynical about these things.

FYI all of our accounts (inc business accounts) are with lloyds and they do look after us because we use a small local branch and they are keen to retain our accounts (also helps whole family use them too and they set up their system to know that so we all get looked after)

pollyanna24

Just to jump on this thread, sorry original poster...

I have an joint bank account with my ex bf. We decided to just keep it open after we split so he could put money into it each month for the children.

Is this now a bad idea? It does have an overdraft on it (but I guess we trust each other to a certain extent) and a lot of my direct debits for the house (I bought him out) still come out of that account (as I'm lazy and haven't gotten around to changing them).

burnoutbabe

I just did it the simpler way. I took out a credit card that is paid from my account. I have a 2nd card for him.

All joint stuff like food and going out together goes on it, he pays me 50% when the bill comes in.

no financial tie at all. course he could go off and spend £000s on it but it has a low limit so that risk is minimised.