My partner and I are looking at moving our Joint account to Monzo, I have a regular Monzo account and think the Joint Monzo account would really help us with sticking to and managing our joint budget.
My partner doesn’t have regular Monzo account and I can see he would need to open one for us to open a joint account. So my question is, once he’s opened his account and then we’ve opened a joint account, can he then close his individual account? He doesn’t want an individual account and doesn’t like the idea of it being on his credit file when he doesn’t use it.
@BeckieQ If your partner doesn’t want to use a personal account why don’t you promote it to him from a different angle?
I use mine as a spending account for all my online purchases, particularly because I was a victim of Ticketmaster fraud when I was a Starling customer.
Now I have the peace of mind that even if my card details were compromised there’s going to be a) not massive amounts of cash for them to try and use and b) any attempt to use my card would be notified to me pretty instantly via Monzo’s notifications… it’s a win win for me…
tobyadams
(#fullmonzo joint account since Aug18)
7
My wife and I also have only our Joint account in use. I’d love to be able to just have the joint account as once married is anything even not joint anyway?!
I’ve tried. Unfortunately he’s one of those “I’ve been with my bank for XX years and I’m quite happy with it” types. He’s happy to switch for joint, but he’s not keen on opening a redundant personal account, he wants to stick with his existing personal account.
He’ll hardly use the joint account himself, that’s why he doesn’t mind that being switched, I do most of the management of the joint bills, etc.
If you have a joint account, the money becomes the survivor’s before any will kicks in.
If not, the personal account becomes part of the estate and is then subject to the ordinary rules of inheritance (which may well result in the same outcome, or not).
How fast you can access the funds is probably more important in practice.
An elderly relative died recently, leaving his wife without any funds for about six months until the estate was sorted. It would have been much easier with a joint current account - she’d have had access to money to live off immediately.
A clever trick I’ve heard of is for one partner to set up a standing order for a significant amount from a personal account each month and then a standing order that sends it back from the joint account a few days later. Then, if that person dies, the other can cancel the SO on the joint account and use the money that comes in each month
I second this comment about the importance of joint accounts. Having a joint account makes things massively easier when a partner dies. The money in a joint account is always yours, so you never lose access to it. But any separate accounts, that takes a bit more work to get access to, and even in the simplest of cases it can take days or weeks before it can be accessed. If the surviving partner has been relying on the deceased partner to pay bills, etc, those few days/weeks could cause huge problems at a time when extra problems are the last thing you want.
Not that I’ve personally been in such a situation yet, but I have seen what has happened to friends and relatives.
There’s absolutely no problem with him sticking with his existing personal account. There’s no requirement that someone should have only one current account at any time.
As a Monzo current account is needed in order to open a joint account, it’s not a redundant account. It’s a necessary prerequisite. If he doesn’t want to use the personal Monzo account, he doesn’t have to.
As for the credit file, it should have little to no impact as Monzo only give overdrafts on request. The simple fact of the account existing shouldn’t add any negative factors at all.
tl;dr, nothing bad will happen from having an unused Monzo current account in order to have a joint account.
I understand that, I just have to find a way to convince him!
Good to know, but not really relevant to us since each of us keep all out personal cash separate, our salaries are paid to our personal accounts. Our joint account is only used for joint bills, groceries, fuel etc. It fills up at the start of the month and is empty by the end of the month.
Neither of us would get anything from the other if we suddenly dropped dead since we’re not married and have no joint assets (other than the joint account which only ever holds a single month’s worth of bill & grocery money.)
Unless your partner applies for a loan or credit card only a soft check will be added to his credit report. Open it and chuck the card in a drawer, it won’t affect things
That’s what I thought.