Three person bank accounts

[Pollyannaatemyjelly]

We have been issued a cheque which has three names on it (one being DH). We were advised by solicitors that opening a joint bank account would be the simplest way of dealing with this. However, we have come to do this and realised that this may negatively impact Dh's credit rating as one of the other 3 has a really bad financial history (previous bankruptcy, IVA in place) and is very bad with money. If the account were opened it would just be a short-term arrangement. Can anyone advise if this would be very risky?

Can you not just contact the payer and ask for three individual cheques? Why have they issued one cheque to three individuals? It makes no sense and seems more of an error that needs correcting on the payers' side.

No error. It's complicated. The money is not split between the three of them.

Not saying this would work...but... At the bank I use you can pay a cheque in a machine, depending on how much it is. I've had cheques clear into my account in my son's name (who's not named on the account). It was an accident and could be a one off, but could you try that way?

If not, I wouldn't want to do that personally. There's some info here https://www.moneyhelper.org.uk/en/everyday-money/banking/joint-accounts#:~:text=If%20one%20of%20you%20has,You%27ll%20lose%20some%20privacy. (If you scroll down there's a 'cons' section)

Co-op offer accounts for 3 holders I think, if you did do it.

Hmm, it's tricky. The effect of opening a three way joint account will be to financially link them which you definitely don't want if one is in an IVA.

How much is the cheque? If it's under £5k ish you could try paying it into dh's sole account and it will likely credit. Very low chance of a manual check at that level. Higher amounts may credit too but it's far less likely.

If you have a good relationship with your bank (ie you have money and they want to keep you!) you could also try approaching them, explain the situation and ask if they'd accept the cheque to a sole account with appropriate written authority from the other two parties. Its not unheard of but it would be at their discretion and again amount dependent. £15k, highly possible if you speak to the right person. £200k, no chance, the bank won't accept that level of risk.

Other than that there's no other way around it really. I'd throw it back at the solicitors and say a joint account isn't possible and ask for ways around it. Difficult to say without more details though.

Who sends cheques these days! Get the 3 beneficiaries to write to the solicitor to confirm they are happy for the money to be paid into the account of one of them, then distribute from there.

It's a 50k cheque. My DH and two others are executors of a Will and trustees. However, a trust has never been set up. As it's not really much money we were advised it probably wouldn't be worth it and we could just open a joint bank account. We can't dissolve the trust as there is no trust.

The trustees have complete discretion over how the money is used. One of the other trustees is a relative who is really bad with money (the one with the IVA).

Does this make sense?

Should also add that everything the relative who sorted this out is the one who is bad with money. They do everything on the cheap. Nothing is ever done properly so everything takes a lot of effort to untangle. It was the wishes of the deceased for the money to be used for this relative but not for them to have it as they would just waste it.

*We can't dissolve the trust as there is no trust.

The trustees have complete discretion over how the money is used.*

How can both of these things be true? Either there is a trust and trustees can determine how the money goes, or if there is no trust, there are no trustees and so they can't determine anything.

It's might be worth moving this over to legal, OP. I'm not sure on the solution here.

I feel it's a strange arrangement and probably not the best situation for DH to be in.

The Will stated for a Discretionary trust to be set up. The executors of the Will were also named as Trustees (without being consulted). The trust has never been set up. There was no money. However, the partner of the deceased has now sold their joint property hence the 50K cheque.