Should you keep separate or joint bank accounts?

When you find your soulmate, fall in love and decide to become life partners, your personal finances – your bank accounts in particular – take on a whole new dimension. Do you keep separate accounts? Or do you pool everything into a joint account?

There’s really no definitive answer. It’s a matter of personal preference requiring a conversation with your partner. You could decide to: • Start with separate accounts, but merge them later. • Open a joint account right away.

• Maintain separate accounts.

• Have both a joint account and separate savings accounts.

WHAT THE SURVEY SAYS ABOUT JOINT ACCOUNTS

A 2014 Angus Reid poll done for TD Bank in the U.S. found 42 per cent of couples choose that last option.

The survey showed independence is the top reason why 38 per cent of couples keep individual accounts. More women (43 per cent) than men (34 per cent) cited independence as their main reason for having separate accounts.

If you’re a millennial, marriage is less of an impetus for opening a joint account, according to the TD Bank survey. Millennial couples are pooling their money well before marriage. They’re tending to merge their accounts when they’re living together, and after they get engaged. Couples 55 and older didn’t do that until they got married, the poll found.

REASONS TO GO JOINT

There are some good reasons to open a joint account

instead of having separate ones: • Everything is in one account, so you both know your total financial resources for paying expenses, spending and saving. • You both know where

your money is being spent. • If anything happens to

either of you, looking after estate finances will be a lot easier legally.

Granted, having a joint account can get messy if you separate or divorce. But generally, it makes your financial life as a couple much easier: • Both of you can set up online banking to pay bills. • Either of you can deposit

and withdraw funds, and write cheques. • Each of you has a debit

card.

JOINT ACCOUNTS AND SINGLE INCOMES

It’s even more important to have at least one main, joint account when there’s only one income-earner: • If your income-earning

partner dies suddenly, you could find yourself without funds to pay monthly bills, funeral costs or other estate expenses. • Unless it’s a joint account,

set up so only one signature is required for transactions, the surviving partner won’t have access to the account. (If you’ve maintained separate accounts, you won’t have access to your partner’s money, either.) • If there’s no will, you

may not be able to claim the money in a double-signature joint account (or separate account) until your partner’s estate goes through probate.