Joint account for couples: advantages and disadvantages of joint account management

Created: 12/21/2022, 2:42 p.m

By: Fabian Pieper

A joint account can be advantageous - but it also involves risks © Andrea Warnecke/dpa

Those who live together often share a joint account.

This has advantages, but also entails certain risks for both owners.

Berlin – The first shared apartment with your partner usually comes with a few organizational hurdles.

The same applies to those who set up a shared flat.

A very crucial point of living together: money.

Because where several people participate in the financing of a thing, they usually fall back on a joint account.

The money is then mostly used for rent, utilities, groceries, household goods and insurance.

The principle, as reported by kreiszeitung.de, is simple: Each owner pays part of the money they have earned into the joint account from which their life together is financed.

Everyone keeps the rest in their private account.

This type of handling is called the three-account model.

But even when making a deposit, some consideration is required: Do both deposit the same amount of money - or is the higher-earning account holder charged more?

There is no ideal solution for this, so it has to be discussed what makes more sense.

A joint account has these advantages and disadvantages

The advantage: If both deposit enough money, the account is covered over time.

The excess money can be used for planned or unplanned necessary purchases, for example.

Another model provides that all partners have their entire salary transferred to the joint account.

Once a month, the money that remains after all costs have been deducted is divided equally or proportionately among the account holders.

The biggest disadvantage of a joint account: all holders are jointly and severally liable.

If a participant causes debts, the others are liable with their share payments.

It is therefore advisable not to accept persons who are at risk of attachment or, in this case, to refrain from opening a joint account altogether.

Also, any account, even a shared one, can become a target for scammers.

If the joint account becomes a matter of trust

And then there is the issue of accessibility.

There are two ways to do this with a joint account.

The first variant provides that everyone involved in the account has full access to the account, is equipped with their own EC card and can withdraw money and make transfers from anywhere without having to obtain the consent of the other account holders (or account) .

Alternatively, it could also be set up that the consent of the other account holders is required for this, so that nobody can use the common money without the knowledge of the other (And account).

In both cases, however, loans, for example, are only possible with the prior consent of all parties involved.

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Closing a joint account requires the consent of all account holders.

If this does not happen, an OR account can also be rewritten as an AND account, at least to ensure that nobody can dispose of the account alone.

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By the way: The joint account does not necessarily have to be at the same bank where one or more of the participants have their private accounts.

So you have a free choice and can decide which bank offers the best conditions for the joint account.