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Correct Way to Title Account (Rep Payee)

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Question: 
When opening an account with a rep payee, what is the correct way to title the account and who would be considered primary account holder?
Answer: 

In Representative Payee accounts, the bank's customer and the account holder is the Representative Payee. The beneficial owner of the funds and the individual whose SSN gets used for interest year-end reporting is the Social Security benefit recipient.

Two classic accepted Representative Payee account titling forms are:

Benjamin Franklin, Rep Payee for
John Hancock
Address

and

John Hancock
Benjamin Franklin, Rep Payee
Address

The first form puts the customer and account owner on the first line, which generally provides better information for tellers (lest they inadvertently pay out funds to the beneficial owner of the funds). The second form addresses the problem of interest reporting for institutions still working with legacy systems that require the SSN for reporting agree with the first line name.

First published on BankersOnline.com 8/6/12

First published on 08/06/2012

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