I have a hypothetical question that was posed to me. Customer comes in with her husband's check which she wishes to cash. She and her husband have a joint account, but she does not want to deposit it. She also does not want to have her husband sign the check over to her. Now, since WA is a community property state, can the wife cash the check? It has been explained to me that the signature card signed upon opening the account gave each owner of the joint account a "limited power of attorney". Has anyone ever heard of this before??? If so, what is the validity of this statement?

I have never heard of this. I work in CA, also a CPS, and am curious if this is something I need to deal with out here... thanks for any help!

While I have worked in several community property states, I have never heard of this either. If the check is made payable to him, it is not necessarily community property. I would not let her cash it.

I wonder if maybe a bank properly disclosed this information would it matter? Personally I dont think so and I have worked for different community property states.
This is the first time I have heard of this also. I would not cash the check for her either! This is just my opinion.

Thank you so much for your fast response! It didn't sound right to me at all...but I had to check. I do have one further question then, is this something that could be written into a bank's deposit disclosure?

I really don't think so and I really don't think you would want to. As a side note, I don't think that your "depositor's agreement" has any bearing on a individual that comes in and cashes a check outside of attempting to preserve a right of offset on any funds on deposits for cashing a bad check.

I haven't heard that before either. But we would allow her to deposit the check into the joint account, then cash another check against the account. So technically, he would not have to be involved. But there would need to be that trail.