The challenges of joint bank accounts
- Usually, joint accounts are held with rights of survivorship.
- Often times, joint accounts are made merely for convenience purposes.
- This means that the account will not necessarily pass later in accordance with a will or trust that was created by a deceased account holder.
- This problem most often arises when one child has their name as a joint account holder to help parent pay their bills.
- While some children may feel they have a moral obligation to allocate funds as expressed in a will or trust, others will not.
- This arrangement also exposes the account to potential attack or forfeiture from creditors of the added account holder.
- In the ever-changing tax world, there can also be tax related issues in these arrangements including income/capital gain/gift tax issues.
