Dormancy in join account - I can't get my money

masonic

Tinkywinks108 said:

Ergates said:
At the point the OP put the money into the account it had been inactive for about 18 years.

Has OP actually said that?  I thought it was opened "about 25 years ago" and "I've used the account sporadically for years with no issues", but I don't see any explicit reference to exactly when it was last used before the £800 deposit two years ago?

Correct - it's never been inactive for as long as 18 years. However I have definitely left it longer than a year in the past - I do think it's a recent Santander policy. Who knows, I may have received one of those long tiny print jargon heavy letters that inform customers of such changes. 

Likely it is a recent policy. A few years ago FCA started raising awareness of the risks of dormant accounts being taken over and used in financial crime.

badger09

Tinkywinks108 said:

badger09 said:

Tinkywinks108 said:

Ergates said:

Tinkywinks108 said:

Theleak250 said:

Have you tried a different branch? Most of the time Santander don’t know what they are doing. It’s worth a try. 

Failing that and failing the complaint, write a real letter to them. Something doesn’t seem right here.

Funny you should say that, my partner reckons that if I had gone to his local branch (a more affluent area) there would have been a better outcome. 

It's maddening that when the account was accessible, (only a couple of months ago) I could withdraw all of the funds with no question.  

It's unlikely it would have made a different, regardless of what your partner thinks.

If the account is Dormant and a standard joint account, then both parties will need to authorise any changes to the account - including taking it out of dormancy.  This will be a standard bank process and whilst a "special" team (e.g. complaints team) might be able to circumvent the process, no branch staff would (or should) be able to.

The nature of your complaint would be that according to your timeline, the account would have been legally dormant (no transactions for 15 years) *before* you paid the money in, so Santander shouldn't have accepted the deposit.

With Santander, the account is made dormant after only 1 year of inactivity!! Dormant and lost accounts | Santander UK 

The 1st paragraph in your link says that Santander may treat the account as dormant. I have a joint account with Santander on which there was no activity for several years which was not made dormant. It had a balance of less than £3 so I’m puzzled why an account with £800 balance should be made dormant after such a short time. 

Interesting....how long ago was that? I think  security measures may have tightened up in recent years due to the increase of fraudulent activity.

Sorry can’t be specific but it’s fairly recently. Currently abroad & it’s difficult scrolling through dozens of statements on my phone. From memory, from 2020 to May 2025. I did, and still do have a sole account.