Joint Checking Between 3 people

[wickedtrue.livejournal.com]

I have a bit of an odd question! May be you guys might be able to help.

My two roommates and myself are attempting to switch banks and recreate our joint household checking account. We've run into, though, that the smaller, local banks won't open a joint checking account between three people.

Does anyone know a bank in the area that isn't BOA or Citizens that might do this? We tried Winter Hill, and they weren't able to help us (but were very polite and apologetic for it!). I've been trying to call other banks' customer service, but they've been recommending me call the physical local banks for this information, so that will happen on Monday.

Thank you for your help if anyone has any experience with this! The thought never even occurred to me that this might be an issue.

Comments

[bombardiette.livejournal.com]

I don't know if this will help, but what I've done in the past is appointed a primary account holder and then gotten authorized debit cards and direct deposit for all other users. It's worked out well.

The downside is that the primary is the sole responsible party so if someone dicks you over, you're left holding the bag.

The only thing the others cannot do is write a check out of the account.

Also, if that won't work for you, I would see if one or two of you could open an account with Winter Hill and then add someone later, instead of everyone doing it at once. It's not a common request, and I've found that often times, smaller banks (and even my credit union) aren't necessarily staffed with folks that are fully aware of what they can actually do, so because they've never heard of it being done, assume that it can't be.

Good luck!