Bank hell

[arlene01]

can abank just close your account without notice

[Ethel]

Yes, it is in the terms and conditions.

What has happened?

[another-view]

He robbed it.

[pink-kittens]

yes, they can and do
My sister has just gone bankrupt and her bank told her she must close her account with them within a certain amount of time - no ifs, ans, buts or maybes. If ti wasn't done it would be closed and any monies owing forwarded to them (not sure how that would have been done)

[Oneeyedvic]

No - they need to give you notice in normal circumstance.

The banking code says 30 calender days.

http://www.financial-ombudsman.org.uk/publicat ions/ombudsman-news/48/banking-closing-account s.htm

Some firms say in their account terms and conditions that they will not close a customer�s account without giving a certain amount of notice. But if that is less than the Banking Code�s 30 days, then � as in all cases of potential conflict between account terms and conditions and the Code � the provisions of the Code take precedence.

...

potential loss to the customer
If a firm closes a customer�s account without giving adequate notice, the customer could suffer losses if the firm � wrongly � fails to honour cheque, standing order and direct debit payments. Such losses could be in the form of interest, charges, or late payment fees levied by the intended recipient of the money, or they could flow from the actual failure to honour the payments.

If we decide the firm was wrong to close the customer�s account when it did, we are likely to require it to reimburse the customer with any such direct costs. And if we decide that further adverse financial consequences flowed from the failure to honour payments, and those consequences were reasonably foreseeable by the firm when it decided to close the account, we would generally expect the firm to compensate the customer. For business customers in particular, the firm�s failure to honour a payment could have extensive � and potentially disastrous � financial consequences.