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Home >> Accounts >> Checking Accounts
Offset from My Account for Unknown Step-son's Debt
I have a checking account at a bank and my husband and son are on it, but have no accounts of their own. They do not use my account. My husband has a son from a previous marriage who has a "doing business as" account at the same bank, but in a different state. He closed it and owed $365.00. His dad was also on this account. The bank then came after my account and took out funds that he owed them in another state. They said they have the right to do this. I hardly know this stepson, nor did I know that a bank has a right to arbitarily take funds out of another unrelated account because the same person is on both accounts. Can they legally do this?
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 You say that your husband and son are "on" your account. That could mean that they are legally joint owners of the account or that they are convenience signers without ownership rights, but the authority to sign checks if you aren't able or available to do so. If they are joint owners, and if your husband was a joint owner of his earlier son's account, the bank's exercise of what is called a "right of offset" may have been legal, depending on state laws, but if your husband was a convenience signer or authorized signer, but not an owner on either your account or his son's account, the bank's action would not have been legal, because there would not be a common ownership connection to both accounts.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 9/15/09
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