Seperate bank accounts

[sg31]

My wife and I have always had joint accounts for current accounts and savings. I remember many years ago my parents solicitor advised them to have separate accounts in case at any future time one of them needed to go into a care home.

Is this still a good idea?

I'm aware that deliberate steps to avoid paying can be rolled back by the authorities. It will be many years before either of us will need care, hopefully.

[Maroochydore]

My wife and I have always had joint accounts for current accounts and savings. I remember many years ago my parents solicitor advised them to have separate accounts in case at any future time one of them needed to go into a care home.

Is this still a good idea?

I don't think it makes any difference:
The method for assessing joint accounts is different. For these the amount in any account is split in half, and each individual is assessed as having half each.
So if you have £40,000 in your joint account, she would be assessed as having £20,000 - which falls below the threshold for local authority help, so she would not be expected to spend this on care.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/pensions-ret ... ifes-care/

However if you are just over the upper capital limit and you want to spend to reduce the amount then it may make sense to have separate accounts to save spending your 'share'.

[sg31]

Thank you for the reply.

We have a house in joint names and considerably over £40,000 in savings. I'm inclined to split everything into our separate names now well before there is any need for care. It will make things much easier if one of us has to go into long term care. My wife is 6 years younger than me so I want to make sure that if I ever need long term care she still has plenty to live on for the rest of her days.

It will be a faff running separate accounts but the peace of mind will be worth it.

We intend doing new wills shortly so I will discuss this with the solicitor to make sure we cover all the bases.

[didds]

... though sepparate bank accounts do mean that when one of you dies the other won;t be able to get hold of the money until probate is completed AIUI. A joint account keeps that money available.

AIUI.

happy to be wrong.

didds

[robbelg]

Why not both!

One joint account and 2 separate accounts.Keep enough in the joint account to "keep going" while waiting for probate, and juggle the separate accounts as needed.


Rob

[sg31]

Why not both!

One joint account and 2 separate accounts.Keep enough in the joint account to "keep going" while waiting for probate, and juggle the separate accounts as needed.


Rob

We have always combined our income, it's our money rather than hers or mine. In practice there is sufficient that if we separated the total into two halves either of us would have enough to survive several years while waiting for probate.

We have both been effectively retired for 3 years and I've been rationalising things from complex to simple. The last remaining complication was that we had a chunk of money set aside to pay MIL's care home fees if she lived a long time. That no longer applies as she died on Monday. This is what caused me to consider the original question. Our wills were drawn up to ensure that if anything happened to either my wife or I, MIIL would be taken care of, now that is no longer necessary we need to have new wills prepared and sorting out our own finances will be part of the process.

A joint current account funded from our proposed individual savings accounts seems the sensible option.