We had a joint account, (no idea now how it was titled) but we understood that the account would be frozen when one of us died. Just before he died my husband suggested that I should open an account in my name and transfer some funds over to it. I did so, transferred enough initially to pay for his funeral and to last me a short time. After he died I went to the bank a couple of times to transfer more money before telling them. On the second occasion the bank manager invited me into his room to tell me that he understood what I was doing and why. Then assured me that although I was being practical there was no need because althiugh it was normal to freeze the account he was not prepared to do so. Apparently some bank managers bend the rules.


Rosemary
​​Ju

The et/ou business is an important thing to be aware of. Same applies to cars, it's best to register them in joint names then if one of you passes away the other one can sell the car because their name is on the carte grise. If it's solely in the name of the deceased, the survivor is stuck with it and itt can be a real hassle to sort out, it should be dealt with by a notaire but most don't want to be bothered. May well apply to other stuff too.

This is a very good spot ET, thanks for the raising of awareness

I just checked on my joint account (here in Belgium), which is neither 'et / ou' ( 'and / or') it's MySurnameHyphenOHSurname.

OH sometimes goes by her 'extended' legit marital moniker, that being HerSurnameSpaceMySurname other times it's simply HerSurname.

As to how the joint account was initially created as 'His-Hers' rather than 'Hers His' ...

I don't think it exists, our joint account just has both names listed without y/o. That said joint accounts should be 50% blocked, but even so the surviving spouse could spend more money than they should, if e.g. 75% of the money in the joint account came from the deceased.