Joint account and ISA

barrowman

My wife and I have a joint bank account and each of us has an ISA. We are 81 and 80 and I have a good company pension so the ISAs are to avoid tax. What happens when one of us dies? There will be more that £20,000 so will one have to be closed as the survivor will have more than the maximum?

Keep_pedalling

Your joint accounts will become the sole account of the surviving spouse. The ISAs of the deceased spouse will need to be closed, but the surviving spouse get an additional allowance equivalent to the value of the value of the ISAs held by their spouse.

https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts/inheriting-an-isa-from-your-spouse-civil-partner

Savvy_Sue

There are special survivor rules around ISAs, which mean that they can be kept open. 

See https://www.gov.uk/individual-savings-accounts/if-you-die

(You have to love the optimism of 'if' you die, although I suppose they can't say 'when' you die, because then it might have to be 'when you die with an ISA still open', to cover the eventuality that you move everything out of the ISA before you die.)