We have an employee who has recently finalized a divorce and wants to know if we can remove the spouse from their accounts with the divorce decree as legal authorization.

Our policy for removing owners is to close the account and open a new one except if it is due to death. Is there any legal requirement that would prevent us from making an exception to our policy? What if we had the person being removed sign something allowing us to remove their name?

Thanks.

In today's world of automated and electronic processing, how will you ever know if the transaction is truly made by the employee or their ex who used to have access? Why would you want to put your bank in the position of potential loss by not following your policy? It's there for a reason. It is far safer for the employee and the bank to close and re-open.

Remind yourself that the divorce decree has no legal effect on the bank. Stick to your policy. If the employee wants the account closed, have her or him open a new account and close the old one, transferring the balance by check. Supply whatever assistance is needed to tweak direct deposits, debit card access, direct (ACH) debits and any internal debits that need attention.

Then, based on a thread post I saw earlier this week, make sure that no one in your organization provides the former spouse with any information on the new account. If your employee wants the former spouse to have that information let him or her be the one to provide it. And be certain that no debits to the old account get posted to the new one without your employee's approval.

In summary, the worst person to allow to violate a sound policy for is an employee. Close account A, open account B.