About the liability, is there any practical concern about entanglement beyond the amount in the account? As a practical matter these accounts usually hold a few thousand dollars that originated from one individual. I had always assumed that if either party incurred some kind of liability, the full amount in the account could be at risk, but... well, it's a few thousand dollars. I'd assumed that there was no other linkage implied, so your other millions of dollars that's not in a shared account would be safe (assuming you weren't the individual who incurred the liability.) If that's not the case... that would be a potential reason to hesitate to be an owner on a shared account. If it's a few thousand dollars only and easily reimbursable by you if you "damage" the joint owner through your liability, then... not a significant concern?True. And I thought I had read somewhere (possibly on this site) about potential liability as a joint account owner?I would be careful with joint accounts. If it’s a small account then it’s not an issue. When I tried to get DPOA on my moms account, they kept pushing the joint account option, but the account was at fdic limit and would have given me a good chunk of her estate if she pass bypassing the other heirs
My mother had historically kept a lot of money at the bank, but once I became involved, I transferred the excess funds over to Schwab in order to earn some small amount of interest.
Statistics: Posted by tibbitts — Tue Jan 20, 2026 10:56 am — Replies 37 — Views 2045