Managing Joint Accounts

A joint account is an account held by two more persons. The important legal consequences of holding a joint account are:

• The right of survivorship – when one joint holder dies, the surviving joint holders automatically take the deceased joint holder’s interest in the account
• Joint and several liability – if the account is overdrawn, each joint holder is individually liable for the full amount owing.

You can operate a joint account on an ‘all to sign’ or ‘either/or to sign’ basis

‘All to sign’ means all joint holders must authorise any transaction on the account
‘Either/or to sign’ means any one joint holder can operate the account

All joint account holders must consent to the joint account being operated on an ‘either/or to sign’ basis. However, any one joint account holder can cancel this arrangement, making it ‘all to sign’.