Valuing the share of a jointly owned bank account

A joint bank account can be held as “joint tenants” or “tenants in common”, though it’s almost always held as joint tenants.

Either way, the method for working out the deceased’s share of a jointly-held bank account is the same.

Start by assuming an equal split

If the deceased held a joint bank account with one other person, the starting point is to assume that deceased’s share was 50%. If it was held with two other people, the starting point is to assume a share of 1/3 (33.3%), and so on.

Usually, it is not necessary to give the matter any further thought.

However, if the contributions to the account were particularly uneven, and the owners treated their access to the account quite differently, then the deceased’s share should be adjusted accordingly.

This is particularly true if an account was in joint names purely for convenience. For example, if the deceased provided all the money for the account, but a child of the deceased was named as an account holder in order to withdraw funds for the deceased now and again, the deceased’s share should be declared as 100%.

If the opposite is true, and the deceased was named as a joint owner of an account purely for convenience (i.e. had a 0% share), then there is no need to declare the account on the inheritance tax forms.

In any case, it is not necessary to calculate precisely the share of an account by referring to bank statements. If departing from the equal split rule, a close approximation (an educated guess) will suffice.

Reducing the share of a joint bank account

Unlike a deceased’s share of a house or other property, it is not possible to apply a 10% or 15% reduction to the deceased’s share of a bank account.

See our guides “Joint tenants and tenants in common: what’s the difference?” and “how to tell if bank accounts, shares, etc are held as joint tenants or tenants in common”.