Joint account advice needed

toffee_paul

Hi,
My partner and I are looking to setup a joint accounts for direct debits come out of rather than our own individual current accounts. The problem is we are both very happy with our own current accounts with different banks and like certain account features.

We like the sound of earning cashback and/or having interest paid into the account on certain amounts but notice these accounts e.g Santander 123, Club Lloyds etc require you to use their 'switching service' to switch from your current account.

At present the utilities/mortgate is split between my partner and I and some are being paid by card (gas/electric/water) and some by direct debit (mortgage, phone/internet). We want to pay all of them by direct debit and all from the one joint account but still retain our own individual accounts which our salaries go into. Because of this, are we likely to miss out on some of the perks of the accounts listed on the MSE Best Bank Accounts page because these accounts require switching?


Any help is much appreciated.

Cheers,
Paul

jonesMUFCforever

You do not have to use any switcher to open a Club Lloyds account or Santander 123 - indeed if you tried the switch would fail as you cannot switch a sole account into a joint account. (You can make them joint after though).

Archi_Bald

You can easily move DDs yourself. Best time to do so is immediately after a DD had been paid, to give the payee plenty of time to update their systems.

grumbler

toffee_paul wrote: »

...are we likely to miss out on some of the perks of the accounts listed on the MSE Best Bank Accounts page because these accounts require switching?

The only perks you can miss are some introductory ones like a short-term better interest rate, free overdraft or a switching bonus/cashback.

That said, you can open a new 'donor' account with some bank and switch it for the introductory perks as well.

I don't know any introductory perks at Lloyds. For Santander it's just £37 TCB.

YorkshireBoy

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

...if you tried the switch would fail as you cannot switch a sole account into a joint account.

Really? The authoritative websites only state that you can't switch joint to sole. There's no mention of sole into joint not being allowed (certainly not that I've seen).

YorkshireBoy

Archi_Bald wrote: »

You can easily move DDs yourself. Best time to do so is immediately after a DD had been paid, to give the payee plenty of time to update their systems.

Whilst that's true for utilities, mortgages, etc, one exception is credit cards. This is because there may not be enough time between the DD collection date and the next statement date (56 days interest free means a circa 5 day window, and that almost certainly won't be long enough). Many (most/all?) providers won't collect by DD if they can't tell you on the statement they will.

toffee_paul

jonesMUFCforever wrote: »

You do not have to use any switcher to open a Club Lloyds account or Santander 123 - indeed if you tried the switch would fail as you cannot switch a sole account into a joint account. (You can make them joint after though).

Thanks for the quick reply. Yes you're right, I didn't check that on Santander's website although it says to get the cashback on the water and council tax and interest on the balance I'd need to fund the account with £500/month excluding internal transfers. Basically, does this mean I can't transfer money from existing bank into this account and I'd need to have my salary paid directly into it?

Thanks Archi also for the DD advice, I've spent many hours on the phone over the years trying to fix DD payments that shouldn't have been taken etc so that was the main reason for wanting to set up DDs after we've already got a joint account set up.

toffee_paul

After having a word with the Mrs, this is ideally what we'd like...

1. Keep our own exising current accounts that our respective salaries are paid into.
2. Set up a joint account (or sole then add joint after setup), with a bank (no real preference on this yet) wherby all our DDs can come out of.
3. Setup standing orders from our existing current accounts each month with enough money to cover our DDs and joint stuff like food/petrol etc.
4. If possible, get some cashback/interest on balance for this newly setup joint account.

After talking about this more though, will the promise of cashback/interest actually be worth it as this account will probably never have more than £1,100-£1,300 in it in any given month because once we pay standing orders into it the DDs then come out.
Are we best just setting up another current account at one of our existing banks and just have the DDs come out of there instead and forget about cashback/interest? After all, it seems that our own current accounts would benefit most from the interest as they will (hopefully) have more money in them over time than the joint account.

grumbler

toffee_paul wrote: »

After having a word with the Mrs, this is ideally what we'd like...

1. Keep our own exising current accounts that our respective salaries are paid into.
2. Set up a joint account (or sole then add joint after setup), with a bank (no real preference on this yet) wherby all our DDs can come out of.
3. Setup standing orders from our existing current accounts each month with enough money to cover our DDs and joint stuff like food/petrol etc.
4. If possible, get some cashback/interest on balance for this newly setup joint account.

...
Are we best just setting up another current account at one of our existing banks and just have the DDs come out of there instead and forget about cashback/interest?

Only you know what's best for you. For me cashback and interest are important factors.

After all, it seems that our own current accounts would benefit most from the interest as they will (hopefully) have more money in them over time than the joint account.

What banks are this and what exactly interest rate your accounts benefit from? Do you have any savings? Unless your accounts are really good, nothing stops you from switching your sole accounts too and benefiting from switching bonuses, better rates and other 'perks'.

xylophone

http://www.santander.co.uk/uk/current-accounts/123-current-account

You can set up a new joint account on line.

You credit it with £500 per account month.

You might as well hold enough in the account to benefit from3% interest rate.

Money is easily moved in and out of the account to your other accounts by faster payment.

colsten

It's easier to use real numbers than have a theoretical discussion.

Santander are the only ones paying cashback on DDs. How much could you earn: http://www.santander-products.co.uk/banking/calculator/123ca.html ?

Current accounts that pay interest have various max amounts they pay interest on:

• TSB Plus 5% £2K
• Nationwide FlexDirect 5% £2.5K, 1 year only
• Club Lloyds 4% £4-£5K, less on lower balance
• Tesco 3% £3K
• BoS Vantage 3% £3K-£5K, less on lower balance
• Santander 123 3% £3K-£20K, less on lower balance
• YB/CB Direct, 2% £3K

So which one suits you best? All can be held jointly, all have different pre-reqs. Club Lloyds and Tesco have avoidable monthly fee, Santander's monthly £2 fee is unavoidable. You are not limited to 1 account or to having all your accounts at the same bank.