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MP   14 June 2018

Bank - Joint account problem

For some years now we are running our society affairs of our residential buildings on our own as the builder is not letting us form a society. As a result, we created a joint account in a national bank to handle the financial affairs of our buildings on our own. Me being the primary account holder and other two flat owners as the joint account holders for the account and also my flat address being mentioned against the account. Due to untowards attitude of the person running the society affairs(and who is also a joint account holder) and not co-operating for an internal audit of the income/expenditure of the society affairs for past 3 years, I decided to withdraw my name from the account as this guy has started keeping me away from the pass-book, cheque book and even mobile registration(for sms banking) related to the account for past some time. Pre & Post submitting the withdrawal of my name and address application to the branch manager, I came across some weird experiences like Bank employees & Bank manager co-operating with the other joint account holders, giving false details to me like address changes been made against the account and mobile# registered for the account is mine and not other joint account holders, the other account holder not sharing the pass-book with me to view the address changes. Was able to reach out to the nodal officer (the next level of escalation in case of a bank branch) only once, where she said if the primary account holder of an account decides to withdraw from the account then the account needs to be closed as per the bank norms. Tried to reach out to her again, but she is not taking up the call or even replying to mails.

I am dealing with two issues here,

1> Primary account holder in a joint account decides to withdraw from the account, is the account supposed to get closed?

2> In cases like our residents, when we come together and create a bank account due to society not being formed by builder; when the people running the account affairs tell you to go to court when we ask for income/expenditure statement and they are not co-operating for even an internal audit what options do I have to pursue an audit? Suppose if i dont go for an audit, and somebody after a while takes a legal route against me to get income/expenditure for past years(as I was the primary account holder of the account), how much trouble I will be in as I've no visibility to the same as I've never handled Accounts work for the same?

Please suggest.



Learning

 4 Replies

G.L.N. Prasad (Retired employee.)     15 June 2018

First issue a Registered  Notice for freezing all transactions immediately and demand for statement of account from Bank.

Unless the exact instruction given in Account opening form was stated it is difficult to provide any guidance. 

Rama chary Rachakonda (Secunderabad/Telangana state Highcourt practice watsapp no.9989324294 )     15 June 2018

 If you want to close a joint bank account, you can do it without the permission of other joint account holders. Yourself can formulate a society a get registered and open a bank account in the name of the society. Problem may be solved.

1 Like

MP   16 June 2018

My name is out of the account now due to an application submitted to the bank for removal of my name some 10 days ago by me. So, I don't have any privileges with me to send a notice to freeze the transactions. Also I do have a bank statement for the entire life of the account from the day account got activated thru the date 2 weeks earlier. I no longer have trust with this branch manager and the employees therein due to issues I've faced with them in last 3 weeks . To add further to the confusion about my address still showin up against the account, I am validating the same with the customer care guys. The customer care people first confirm about my address still showing up and later say that they misread the address details. The change in the new address(address of the other joint account holder) and the old address(mine) is very minimal, only the building number from A to B was needed to be changed. As the other account holder stays in the same flat number but in the different building and the rest of the address is same as both the buildings are adjacent to each other.

1> Now my problem is where to get my address details validated as I've lost trust in the branch manager and apparently the branch of the bank. Also per se a single communication with the nodal officer; a primary account holder in a joint account when decides to remove his name from the account, that particular account automatically gets closed. But here in my case the branch manager is allowing a subsitute of an primary account holder which has been already done. The nodal officer is unreachable since that communication. Whose help can i take to validate if my address still reflects in the account ?

2> Second problem is there is no way we can create a society, as there is an application submitted to the court by the builders associate(one of the owners of a flat) to form a condonium in the court. Also, we do have some differences in between us(residents) in the society. I dont have any issues open against the builder apart from creation of society, but most of the others have issues still pending with the builder. There are some people like me but we have got caught up in this fight as the other residents are not willing to quit fighting the builder. So yes, you can assume I am alone with no real backing in the society.

G.L.N. Prasad (Retired employee.)     16 June 2018

What is the name of the Bank ?

If it is in PSU, file RTI Application and seek copy of the extract / Manual instructions of dealing with joint savings bank account, when one of the joint holder requests for withdrawal of his name.

The Primary and secondary is only for purpose of Tax and not for operations.   There is no such division of duties or responsibilities or dilution in rights as Primary and seconday.

Those struggles without collective and as a group must fail.  It is not your time, first protect your interest.

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