Joint bank account and mortgage

nottingham123

Hi,

My girlfriend has moved in with me just over a year ago and the house is in my name mine and its mortgaged. We are considering having a joint bank account as it seems silly that we are dividing money up for shopping etc, but my question is if we go ahead with a joint account will that have any effect on the mortgage which is in my name and I want to stay in my name, for the time being at least.
I assume that as a joint ban account is paying the mortgage, could that be seen as though as my girlfriend is contributing towards the mortgage that she would have some entitlement to it should we split up.
I have had the property for over 6 years if that makes a difference

PeacefulWaters

A joint bank account will create a financial relationship. If one of you ever gets credit difficulties it could have a severe negative impact on the other's credit file too.

For this reason alone I dislike joint accounts.

Spending a couple of hundred quid on getting a solicitor to draw up an agreement of some sort establishing each party's rights if the relationship ends might be a sensible thing to do.

WibblyGirly

If your food shop is about the same each week why not just take it in turns to pay it without sending each other the other half? Or create a 2nd separate joint 'food bill' account? Only for joint expenses such as food, meals out etc but keeps your mortgage payment separate for you.

TBagpuss

You could set up a joint account but continue to pay the mortgage from your sole account.
If your partner is contributinf, whether directly (i.e. to the mortgage) or indirectly (e.. paying towards bills and thus freeing up your money to pay the mortgage) she might later be able to argue that she should have some claim on the property as a result of those contributions.

It would perhaps be sensible for the two of you to sit down and discuss what your respective plans and expectations are, and to consider having a cohabitation agreement drawn up, which allows you to set out exactly what your mutual agreement is about the property, and also means that you both need to think abut, and discuss, what your expectations are.

Any claim she might have against the house would be based on there being an implied or explicit agreement or joint intention that she would start to gain an interest in the property, so having a formal, written agreement in place provides evidence of what the agreement or joint understanding actually is.

You can then review the agreement periodically and might, in time, decide to amend it to provide that you will keep the equity you've already built up and that moving forward, she will start to contribute and to built up an interest in the property.

SuzieSue

Do not open a joint account until you are at least married. I did it in my first relationship and now cannot close it which puts me at a financial disadvantage as I cannot open the interest paying current account that I want to.

Fortunately my ex does not have a bad credit rating but if he did it could impact mine.

Fireflyaway

A joint account creates a financial tie, so if your partner did go overdrawn / missed bill payments / wiped out the account and went to Barbados (joking!) Then your credit score would be impacted which then could mean difficulty obtaining finance or the best deals.
If the mortgage is in your name and you are unmarried my understanding is she won't have a claim on it. If you get married then split up, that could be different. If she was deemed to have made a contribution and then become financially disadvantaged as a result of divorce she could be awarded something. I'd speak to a solicitor to be 100% sure.
My husband and I have separate accounts each but a joint one for bills .that way you can't accidentally spend bills money! We agree how much each to transfer and the rest we keep. Its nice to still have independence.

worried_jim

I work for a bank and regularly see the grief that joint accounts cause so I'm tarnished about the idea of having one. Keep it simple, keep it separate.

The_Logans

We didn't do a joint bank account until I went on maternity leave with our first child (after we were married). At that point it made sense because I had not very much coming in, hubby had lots more. We couldn't split things fairly (I was raising our son, not a well-paid job!) Until then we split things evenly - he paid the mortgage and I paid the bills.

pollyanna24

SuzieSue wrote: »

Do not open a joint account until you are at least married. I did it in my first relationship and now cannot close it which puts me at a financial disadvantage as I cannot open the interest paying current account that I want to.

Fortunately my ex does not have a bad credit rating but if he did it could impact mine.

Why can't you close it? I've had joint accounts both with my ex and my brother (both of whom I had a mortgage with) and managed to shut them when we didn't need them anymore.

tea_lover

I can't close the joint account I had with my ex-husband as I have no way of contacting him. It's been sitting there untouched for nearly 17 years. I can't transfer the money from it either. It's completely frozen unless I can track him down, which I'm not willing to do.

SuzieSue

pollyanna24 wrote: »

Why can't you close it? I've had joint accounts both with my ex and my brother (both of whom I had a mortgage with) and managed to shut them when we didn't need them anymore.

It's a Tesco Clubcard Plus account which I opened around 20 years ago. Tesco said that they need his authorisation to close it. I have written to him with a letter that he can sign and post to them but he hasn't done it. All Tesco can do is stop him accessing it in the hope that he will contact them, which they have done. The strange thing is that he is still paying in £300 a month in to it and so it has several thousand pounds in it, but he doesn't seem bothered.

It meant that I can't open another current account as you can only have two and the Clubcard Plus account counts as one.