I found out about the joint account a few years ago though I'm glad I had it open because checks from the IRS have to be cashed with both people on the check present even if the other person has signed it....OR it can be cashed through a joint account. Being that I lived 2100 miles away, no way were we going to both be there to cash it. I found a sister CU with the one we had our joint account in that I had been paying the IRS out of.

The glitch with the account was that he was using it to pay bills with & it would go negative the day after his disability check was auto deposited. I had called the CU where we had the joint account & they were the ones that told me that unless I cashed it when the balance was positive they would keep the check to cover the overdraft. Joint accounts won't send out statements to two different locations & obviously my almost ex never communicated things when we were married it was a sure thing he wasn't going to communicate this. By June that year he had already accumulated $1100.00 in overdraft fees & that after several years of not paying property taxes or house payments. The guy I talked to at the CU suggested that I needed to know when the auto deposit happened, cash the check immediately, then I should close the account or I could become responsible for any overdraft charges. I nicely asked almost ex to let me know when the check was deposited. He didn't let me know & when I checked he had withdrawn all but $14 to cover his bills for the month. I was pissed because he didn't honor my request so I flew up to the sister CU in the city, 45 minutes from my farm, praying that nothing would come through during my drive there. It was still positive at $14, I was able to cash the check & immediately flew home again hoping it would still be positive, & CLOSED THE ACCOUNT.....it didn't pay to not work with me because when he gets me angry I will do what ever within my rights to get even.....but that was how I found out that any person on a joint account can close it without the ok of the other person. If I had been really mean I would have had the balance sent to me so he wouldn't have known until the first bill bounced....but he got the balance as notice the account was closed. Lol..not one word out of him about the account.....though I let our daughter know what was going on & why.

Sometimes the only thing we get out of ending a marriage with a financially irresponsible person or one that lies & covers up like yours, is the freedom to get away from them & walk away to start life over. Not easy at my age or the fact I'm on disability too but I feel so wonderful being free from him, sometimes not coming out of a bad marriage is a small price to pay for the freedom.