Removing Owners

• Legally, you have no right to change your joint account to a single-ownership account by instructing your bank to remove the name of the other account owner. In theory, your bank could remove one of the joint owners if that person consents to have his name removed. However, you could write several checks and then ask your bank to remove your name from a joint account. The checks would then post to the account after your name has been removed, leading to a possible legal dispute between the bank and the remaining owner with regard to the validity of the checks. To prevent such situations from occurring, most banks only allow you to remove the name of an owner by closing the account and re-opening a new account.
  
  

Name Change

• You can change the name on a joint account if you or the other owner have cause to change your legal name. If you get married or divorced, you must provide your bank with a copy of the marriage certificate or divorce decree. Most banks also require a copy of your updated social security card and government-issued identification in order to change the name on your account. You can also change the account titling if you change your name for a reason other than a major life event, but only if you can provide the bank with some kind of supporting documentation.
  
  

Trust

• If you and the other owner of a joint account establish a joint revocable trust, you can change the titling of your joint account so it bears the name of the trust, rather than just your individual names. From the Internal Revenue Service's perspective, you and your revocable trust are one and the same, since the trust operates under your social security number. Therefore, your bank can change the titling of the account when you establish a revocable trust, because doing so does not involve adding or removing any social security numbers.
  
  

In Trust For Accounts

• You can enable your friends or family members to gain access to the money in your joint account upon your death by adding them as pay-on-death (POD) beneficiaries on your joint account. When you do this, your bank renames your joint account so that it carries the names of the owners, followed by "In Trust For," and then lists the names of the POD beneficiaries. The POD beneficiaries have no control of the account until you die, so although their addition results in a name change on the account, it does not cause a change in ownership.