Best joint account for house of students (Best overdraft?)

JoeA81

When I was a student, one of our landlords insisted that we open a joint account together so that the rent came as one lump sum. We did it with Barclays. I have to admit that I did it with my eyes completely closed, and had no idea about other people affecting your credit rating or anything like that. Having said that I dont thing I have had any adverse affects on my credit rating, this all happend about 5 years ago.

But having done it, I would also argue against a joint account. Not for the credit rating reasons, but for all the other headaches. For example when one person "forgot" to pay their rent for that month into the account, the payment to the landlord failed and we were charged £30. This happened more than once, and there was a big argument over who should pay these charges. Also as has been mentioned it took years to close this account down, mostly because we all forgot about it, but also because you need everyones signature, and a few were long gone by this point. In the end I got them to accept 2 out of 4 sigs to close the account, but it was a bit of a kerfuffle!