Sole to joint account transfer

Traficlady

My husband and I each have a Santander 123 current account. We didn’t get a joint account when we got married 4 years ago so we could each take advantage of the Interest. Now the interest is so poor, we want to change to a joint account.

My husband has just spoken to someone at Santander who has said that, to transfer to a joint account they will only transfer one lot of standing orders and direct debits. The other one of us will have to do that ourselves for our own account. This sounds absolutely ridiculous. He also said that, if we go to another bank, It will be the same, the new bank will only transfer from one account. 

Any ideas if this is true or any ways round it? 

Zanderman

You refer to a 'transfer' not a 'switch'.  A switch would transfer everything - but I doubt they'd switch a single to a joint account.
So I assume this wouldn't be a 'switch' as such but simply making one of the single accounts joint?    Which would be simpler and easier.  And anyway 'switches' aren't usually done within the same bank.

In which case yes, only one set-up would still be there in the (newly) joint account.
That sounds perfectly sensible and reasonable to me, not ridiculous at all.

One obvious part solution is to make both the existing single accounts joint - and then ask if they will switch one into the other.  They might not as the switching is usually between banks.  But you could later switch the account away to another bank and switch in back in.

Or, vastly simpler, just transfer the SO s and DDs yourselves - it's not that difficult.

Edited to add:  And, btw, the interest is so poor on 123 now that you may be much better off with 123 Lite - same cashback, lower fee but no interest - and put money you want to earn interest on elsewhere.

colsten

Santander (and probably other banks) won't offer an internal switch. You'd have to move the SOs yourself, and tell any DD payees the new sort code and account number. Then move the remaining balance, and ask Santander to close the account, or to downgrade it to an Everyday account, which is free.

If you insist on having everything done for you, you could 

1. make one of your existing accounts joint (and downgrade it to a 123 Lite, as Zanderman already suggested)
2. switch the other Santander account to some other bank
3. switch from the other bank into the joint Santander account

I reckon this would take roughly a month elapsed, and you will still have to verify that everything's been done as expected. It's far, far easier to just do it yourself.

However, do you really want to have only 1 account? What if something goes wrong, either for all customers, or just for yourselves? It's generally a good idea to have at least one additional account at a different bank.

AnotherJoe

I've just closed a Santander account and it was pretty easy to transfer the DDs before I did. Much easier than a few years back. One by phone because of an unusual circumstance, the other two online. So unless you really have a huge number of DDs just do it manually. 

crumpet_man

Can you change a Santander sole account to joint without going into the branch?
I recently had this same issue of wanting to change from sole to joint and the easiest for me was to open a new joint 123 lite and manually move the six DDs which took no more than 30 minutes.