Most people think, mistakenly, that “joint bank accounts” held with others creates equal ownership interests of funds deposited within the accounts. As a result, most people think, mistakenly, that they possess equal rights to the use of funds within the accounts. As a practical matter, one party’s misuse of funds most frequently does not result in litigation because: folks willing to create joint accounts with others typically open joint or multi-party accounts because of a close relationship built on trust and even where one party may abuse that trust, there may often be reluctance to bring a legal action because of the relationship.
There are, however, a myriad of scenarios that would give rise to one aggrieved party’s desire to bring a legal action to recover monies used improperly from the account by another ranging from the amount of money at issue, a falling out of the relationship, use of money in manner not contemplated by the parties, i.e., money earmarked for the present or future care of a loved one but used for another’s personal gain--and the list goes on and on.
When a legal action is instituted to recover monies improperly used from a joint account, Pennsylvania’s Multiple Party Account Act, 20 Pa.C.S. § 6301 et seq., provides the answers to important questions, and the most important question of all, who does the money really belong to? The Multiple-Party Account Act provides that: “A joint account belongs, during the lifetime of all parties, to the parties in proportion to the net contributions by each to the sum of the deposit, unless there is clear and convincing evidence of a different intent.”
The answer to the $64,000 question of “who’s money is it” is, simply provided by the Act--each party, in the amounts of their contribution to the account, over the life-time of the account. So, just because a party can use the money in a joint account, remember, they may not be able to.
