Joint account with my ex

carlym81uk

Hi all

I have a joint account with Santander with my ex partner. We have been split for almost 2 years (come January).
The issue I am having is that this joint account is in overdraft, to the sum of £190. I have not used this account since we split. The charges on the account are not down to myself but to my ex , because he had some bills coming out of the account and never put the money in on time, so we were charged returned DD fees and then daily over draft fees and the likes. . I have tried to go to the bank to ask for them to be reversed but to no avail , because I had already had this done before because of him. I have also asked my ex to pay half and i would pay half, but he is refusing to do it.
Does anyone have any advice on what i could do about this? It looks like i am going to be the one who is going to have to pay it and then he still might not agree to close the account and set up some more direct debits and just allow this all to happen all over again.

grumbler

Well, until the account is closed you remain jointly and solely responsible for paying the OD off. If your ex refuses to close the account (or convert it to a sole one), then contact the bank, be persistent, don't let them fob you off and demand the account to get frozen and closed (or converted to a sole one on your or your ex's name) on the condition that you pay the overdraft off. If they refuse, cancell all DDs and start a formal complaint. Meanwhile keep an eye on the account and keep cancelling the DDs if they reappear, but you can't stop your ex from spending on the debit card and transferring money from the account.

Archi_Bald

In their T&Cs they say

3.2 If you have an account that can be operated in joint names:
a) you are both responsible (individually and together) for any money you owe us; and
b) each of you can use the account on your own, without the other’s approval (this includes instructions to close the account) except in the case of savings accounts where we have given you the option to run the account on an ‘all to sign’ basis or ‘more than one signature’ basis and you have taken this option up.

http://www.santander.co.uk/csdlvlr/BlobServer?blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=id&blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadervalue1=inline%3Bfilename%3DPDF-CORE0014.pdf&blobwhere=1314012030861&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition

Please note that if the joint account is operated on an either signature basis, we can take instructions to close the joint account from either account holder.

http://www.santander.co.uk/csdlvlr/BlobServer?blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobkey=id&blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobheadervalue1=inline%3Bfilename%3DBANK0456JUL14HT_LOW.pdf&blobwhere=1314014383211&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition

So you need to figure out whether you have an "either signature" account. Hopefully you have, which then enables you to close the account and get rid of the problem for good.

From the sounds of it, it will cost you £190 but you would just have to swallow this. In theory, you could also file a Money Claim Online against him but it might cost you extra money, and he might still not cough up.

Once you have managed to close the account, you should also make sure that your credit files no longer show an association with your ex.

Good luck!

Edit: MCOL fee for £190 is £25
http://hmctsformfinder.justice.gov.uk/courtfinder/forms/ex050-eng.pdf