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Home >> Checks/Money Orders >> Checks You Received
Depositing Joint Check into Personal Account
Recently I saw this Q&A on your site. The reason that I mention this is because I have a similar situation, however with a different question.
My wife and I are in the same boat in a different stream. I received our joint IRS refund check today and took it to TD Bank in New York City where I have a sole account. My wife had already endorsed the check and I did so at the bank. The teller told me that "by law" they could not deposit this check into anything other than a joint account, because the "Pay to the Order" listing was to me and her. They said that if they were to accept the check for deposit, they would be fined by the state. She claimed that this was according to "US Statutes", but could not locate any information as to which one. Do you know of any US or New York State law that prohibits any bank from depositing a properly endorsed US Treasury check into an individual account?
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 First, we appreciate very much that you have taken the time to research your question here. Our goal is to provide questions and answers based on real situations that will help bank customers and others answer their own questions, and to encourage them to communicate with their banks to resolve specific questions for which we are unable to provide detailed answers.
There are a couple of explanations for what you experienced, but there is no federal statute that mandates that a jointly payable check be deposited to an account held jointly by the payees. If there were such a law, check cashing stores would never be able to handle multiple-payee checks. We are not aware of any state law that would impose such a requirement, either.
Bank tellers sometimes misinterpret their banks' policies. Obviously, whether your bank has a policy that would prevent it from accepting the refund check you described, cannot be known. Obviously, the teller believes it does. It's only a short step, then, for a teller to offer an outside rule or regulation as the justification of such a policy, real or imagined. Blaming the impasse on a government regulation or law is an easy shortcut that may succeed in defusing what the teller sees as unpleasant problem, not being able to help a customer, because the customer often gives up and leaves without even asking to speak to a supervisor.
Start by contacting a supervisor at your bank and describing your problem. Ask if the bank has a strict policy against accepting a jointly payable check for deposit to an account of one of the payees, or if the policy requires that the other payee document her identification in person. You may be pleasantly surprised.
If the bank won't budge, you may have to open a joint account to get the check deposited. If you do so, and if the account can be maintained inexpensively, keep it open for other times when you might receive a multiple-payee check.
As for next year, when it's time to file your tax return again, think about choosing direct deposit of any refund. The IRS will allow joint filers to designate an account of one of the filers, if you don't have a joint account open.
Ask your bank first, before anyone endorses a jointly-payable check. In this case, a telephone call or visit might have prevented the refund check from being endorsed with no place to deposit it.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 6/11/09
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