Closing joint bank account

KaratePigeon

I split up with my ex about 18 months ago, we had a mortgage etc together, the house is now sold and we have both moved on.

There is still a bank account in both our names which we used to use for shared bills which I need to close down. He said he doesn't have access to it any more (just lazy, he's forgotten his passwords etc and can't be bothered resetting them) so I'm topping it up to stop it going overdrawn.

I've transferred everything I can from it - the only things left coming out of it are Virgin mobile (for our kids' mobile phones, but all in his name), plus 2 things that are linked to his paypal (I have no idea what they are, some kind of regular subscription but only shows up on the bank statement as Paypal).

Can I just contact the bank and get them to close it? Will it affect my credit rating if the payments don't get paid? I really want to cut anything that links me to him financially as he's rubbish with money.

The Virgin phone contracts are SIM only but stupidly expensive, I want to transfer them to something cheaper but I've been asking him for about a year to contact them for a PAC, he's too lazy to do it, but the kids want to keep their phone numbers and not be disconnected :(

Bradden

I think it depends who you bank with. I had a joint account with Santander. They would not close without instruction from both parties but i was able to freeze the account and cancel the direct debits

savergrant

With regards to the phones you can text PAC to 65075 from the phone to get a pac, then just sign up for a new deal with someone else and take the old numbers to them. There is no need to do anything with the bank. As for other payments so long as there is no overdraft at the bank you should be able to have your name removed as an account holder, although that may be complicated if your addresses aren't upto date.