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Sunday, July 5, 2015

Understanding Joint Bank Accounts

At TD Canada Trust, our personal deposit accounts may be set up in the names of two or more individuals. These are referred to as “Joint Accounts”. When a Joint Account is set up with us, the accountholders must decide whether their joint consent is required to withdraw funds or otherwise transact or provide instructions in respect of the account or whether either of them may do this on their own.
Joint accounts can help you pay household bills or manage other shared expenses with a spouse or family member, especially if you have health or mobility issues that make it more difficult for you to manage your personal banking on your own. In addition, a parent may consider setting up a joint account with a family member, such as an adult child, if they are planning to be out of the country traveling or vacationing for an extended period or following the death of a spouse who typically handled the household finances.
Unless you set up the Joint Account to require all accountholders to instruct us or transact on the account jointly, any accountholder may transact without your consent. Transactions include deposits, withdrawals, transfers and account closure. This means that:
  • You will be responsible for all transactions initiated by the other accountholder(s) just as though you made the transactions yourself.
  • Other accountholder(s) generally have the right to withdraw some or all of the funds in the Joint Account at any time regardless of who deposited the funds into the account.
  • You may be exposed to financial problems of another accountholder where the accountholder has unpaid debts and a creditor seeks to recover amounts it is owed by seizing the funds in the Joint Account.
  • You are responsible for any transactions that result in an overdraft in your Joint Account even where caused by the other accountholder(s). For example, a cheque deposited to the Joint Account by another accountholder may be returned due to insufficient funds (“NSF”). If payments were made out of the Joint Account in reliance on that NSF deposit, the Joint Account may be put into an overdraft position and you will be responsible for all related interest and fees owed to us.

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