Joint Bank Accounts

NewbieMoneySavingExpert

Hi

I'm looking at opening a joint account with my girlfriend. This account will purely be used to pay our bills, rent, council tax as we are losing track of who pays what and when!...

We will still keep our own seperate accounts aswell.

I have quite a lot of debt and am attempting to sort it out (0% balance transfers and so on) and recently applied for my credit rating which says that I have an excellent rating - I always make payments on time and haven't applied for any credit in the last year.

I read the following comment on a previous forum:

"It is not a good idea to open a joint account with your girlfriend, or indeed any other person.

Doing so creates a "financial association". If one of you gets a bad credit rating, it will affect the other person's credit rating for years to come."

Under no circumstances do I want my position to have an effect on hers!

Could someone tell me whether this statement is true and offer some advise on the best joint bank accounts available if we do decide to go with it.

Many thanks

jonesMUFCforever

Yes it is true.
It won't affect you but could affect her or vice versa!

Do you really need a joint account?
Could you not just operate one account each and agree who is to pay this bill and that?

jamesd

The statement is true and lenders will see your record with hers when they do a credit check on her. She won't be able to get your details if she asks for her own credit report but will be told of the association with you.

Better to use a single person account with web access so you can both manage it and run everything through that.

jamesd

One more bit of tuning: find out which bills show up on credit reports and try to split them between accounts run in the name of each of you so that you both get a record of on time payments.