These are the accounts that banks can block (prior notice)

Clients with accounts at any bank tend to have, in the vast majority of cases, freedom to use their accounts, within the margins allowed by the contract signed for the opening. However, sometimes the bank can decide, unilaterally, to block the account.

This circumstance can be a real problem. From the moment the account is blocked, the client cannot withdraw money, make transfers … all his balance is frozen. That is why it is important to know the possible causes of this blockage in order to act accordingly.

The Bank of Spain reports on the situations in which banks can block their clients’ accounts. They are cases recognized and protected by banking regulations and anti-fraud and anti-money laundering and terrorist financing regulations. Some of the most significant are the following:

-The agency explains that your account can be blocked by following the money laundering and terrorist financing regulations, since it requires periodically the provision of a series of documentation and if the client does not comply with it (for not seeing the notices, for forgetfulness …) the bank must proceed to block the account.

When this happens, the client must provide that documentation that was required and not provided, and whose ultimate objective is to identify the account holder, as well as to effectively monitor their activities to monitor possible operations that may be investigated. .

-Other of the cases in which accounts can be blocked when they exist discrepancies between the movements of their co-owners. If their orders are contradictory among them due to a conflict between them, the bank must block the account to act in accordance with the rules of good practice.

To resolve this problem, the co-owners involved in the conflict must submit to the bank a written agreement or a judicial resolution agreeing to the end of the disagreements.

-Accounts can also be blocked in the event of the owner’s death, provided that the bank advises before doing so and when there are discrepancies between the surviving holders or the heirs of said account, if any, as explained by the Bank of Spain.

The agency informs that, in addition, there may be another cause for blocking the bank account of a customer who has just died: that it is strictly agreed in the account opening contract. Even if it is stated in the signed contract, it must also be previously informed of said blocking.