@lookingforward, you are not supposed to sign your spouse’s name, even for deposit only.
I once got a check for an insurance pay out made to me and my husband. I tried to deposit it but they wanted his signature also. The problem was he was on a Navy ship in the Mediterranean. It would have taken more than a month to send the check to him and have it mailed back endorsed and he wasn’t due home for about 3 more months. I signed his name and deposited it.
Banks don’t actually care so much that the balances balance. We got a check from a client for $450, and deposited it by ATM (this was a couple years ago, because no ATM near us accepts deposits anymore). It cleared our bank for $400. It cleared her bank for $450. The ATM-owner bank (BOA) said that their procedures allowed for a certain amount of over/under in the ATM transactions and that as long as the net was less than that, it wasn’t worth their time to figure it out, but since we’d complained they supposed they could give us the other $50.
Just endorse it and deposit it in the automatic teller/atm.
That’s weird. You were due 450. What BAC has sometimes done for us is not credit (or release) the full amount to our account right away, until the full dollar amount transfers from the first bank. This happened more with personal checks than corporate. We can still deposit at the ATM, inserting checks or cash.
One of the first things I learned when I got married was from another wife of the group 30 some years ago was that I could deposit H’s paychecks without his signature. Before automatic bank deposits were used. His office staff loved it, and the accountant, otherwise he would wait even months (he, and we, did not need the money- advantage of large checks and living far below one’s means).
We ran into a situation when our 16 year old started college. We closed the account in son’s and my name that required my signature (useful depository for birthday et al checks). H and son went to the bank where they were supposed to set things up with an account son could access without a parent signature although being a minor an adult also needed to be on the account (but not the checks). They goofed as son found out over a hundred miles away several months later (kid was in the dorm and apparently not spending much money). The bank redid things like they supposedly had the previous summer. I took a few years after college for son to get around to changing that account to take off his father’s name- we know when he did it (after our nagging him awhile) because we no longer got his balance along with ours on our monthly statement.
. Hah–H will always testify that he signed it; no one will ever be able to prove that it is me ALWAYS signing his name on any joint check, or check in his name only for that matter. If he ever does try to sign something himself, he may run into trouble. His official signature by now is my version of it. 
Not a laughing matter, it is fraudulent.
Well, the only person who could challenge the signature is him, so I’m really not worried. And, really, how is that fraudulent? I am depositing his checks into our joint bank account.
That’s sort of over-dramatic.
Agree with you, garland. Check proofers went away with the dinosaurs. They wiill not question a signature unless the person to whom the check was made out has a concern (which neither of you do) so its a non-issue.
It’s only a crime if charges are filed. I endorse checks in my husband’s name to deposit when necessary. Our bank requires every name on check to be endorsed for it to be cashed or deposited.
If it is a check that requires both signatures, like an insurance check made out to two parties with “and” between them, it is fraud. Not sure we take this line with our kids “It is only illegal if you are caught”, don’t know why you would apply it as an adult. If your spouse is going to be away for an extended period (deployment, etc), you can get POA to sign it legally. Banks do come back sometimes when they are not satisfied with an endorsement – it happened to me recently on a large business check that I put in through the ATM. They refused the deposit and I had to go into the branch. Larger checks do get more scrutiny.
As an example
Bank of America, Feb 2015. I can give the link.
“Some Basic Terms for Joint Accounts
If more than one person’s name appears in the title of an account without a fiduciary, beneficiary or other designation, then the account is a joint account. All persons whose names appear on the account are co-owners of the account, regardless of whose money is deposited in the account. Each co-owner acts as the agent of each other co-owner. Each co-owner authorizes each other co-owner to operate the account without the consent or approval of any other co-owner. We may act and rely on the instructions of one co-owner without liability to any other co-owner. So as examples, one co-owner may without the consent or approval of the others:”
And includes this wording:
"• endorse for deposit to the joint account on behalf of any other co-owner an item payable to another co-owner;"
Isn’t that what we’re talking about? Now, I know some individual bank branches can have their own particular policies- I’m sometimes caught by that when using two different branches of my own bank. So each of us can check. But this, as an honest action to get your spousal monies into your spousal account, isn’t some crime, in itself.
Thank you. No one is being defrauded, so I fail to understand how it is fraud.
“@lookingforward, you are not supposed to sign your spouse’s name, even for deposit only.”
I wouldn’t think twice about signing my H’s signature (and vice versa), it’s hardly as if someone at the bank is carefully comparing signatures. My H’s signature is a scribble anyway; no one can tell the difference between his signing it and my rendition. Who’s going to challenge it? To me this is much ado about nothing.
If I needed both signatures on a check for our account, I’d sign it with his blessing and go on with my day. This isn’t even a “thing” IMO.
Good luck, Citibank, trying to discern whether the chicken scratch that passes for my H’s signature - which is basically his first initial and then a scrawl - came from him or me!
I had a young teller ask me one day if I had signed my husband’s name. I said yes (I don’t know why I said yes) and she took it to her supervisor. I could see that woman roll her eyes and yes, the check was accepted.
You could endorse the check sgning your own name. That’s what I do. I don’t sign someone else’s name.
I bank with USAA’s online bank. When I deposit checks made out to both my husband and me, I sign my name and I print his name underneath mine. The checking account is a joint account in both of our names. I deposit the check with my smartphone app. Never had a problem.
Igloo, signing your own name isn’t “on behalf of” another.
What the blurb said is that each is agent for the other, for a deposit to a joint account.
Any of us can check how our own banks want this done. The bottom line we’ve been talking about is getting the joint money into the joint account. Not some other scenario. I agree you shouldn’t be able to cash a check made out out to someone else or deposit his money into an account only you hold, without the proper steps.