For SSI, is “authorized user” status on a bank account the same as “ownership”?
"Having dealt with with Social Security, state agencies, and banks more than I'd care to, I would urge you to do the following: 1) Get a 100% clear answer on whether or not you are listed as ""joint"" or ""authorized user/signer"" for an account. This will probably require a call to the bank, but for less than an hour of you and your friend's time you will save yourself a whole lot of hassle. The difference is like this: if you worked at a business that added you as an authorized user for a credit or debit card, this would allow you to use the card to buy things. But that doesn't make the money in the bank yours! On the other hand if you are listed as ""joint"", this regards ownership, and it could become tricky to establish whether its your money or not to any governmental satisfaction. 2) You are completely correct in being honest with the agency, but that's not enough - if you don't know what the facts are, you can't really be honest with them. If the form is unclear it's ok to ask, ""on having a bank account, does being listed as an authorized user on someone else's account count if it isn't my money or bank account?"" But if you are listed as holding the account jointly, that changes the question to: ""I am listed as joint on someone else's checking account, but it isn't my money - how is that considered?"" To Social Security it might mean generating an extra form, or it might mean you need to have the status on the account changed, or they might not care. But if you don't get the facts first, they won't give you the right answers or help you need. And from personal experience, it's a heck of a lot easier to get a straight and clear answer from a bank than it is from a federal government agency. Have the facts with you when you contact them and you'll be ok - but trust me, you don't want them guessing!"
If John signs the lease he is entitled to stay there for the duration of the lease regardless of the foreclosure status.   http://www.nolo.com/legal-encyclopedia/renters-foreclosure-what-are-their-30064.html I would suggest that signing a year lease (even by email), with the plan to leave as early as possible is a good thing.  The key will be to make sure the penalty for leaving early is nothing. John doesn't know the status of the foreclosure, how long it will take, who might own afterwards and a lot of other unknowns.  The worst case is to be unsure of where you are living. Sign the lease, and be secure for one whole year that you know where you will be living.  Spend that year finding a new place to live.   If the bank doesn't offer you clear and obvious ways to submit rent, open an account AT THE BANK and deposit the rent there, on time. You are establishing credibility that you deserve to stay.  You still owe the rent, so pay it. They don't want to be your landlord, but don't let a bank bully you around. How you check if a broker is legitimate: 1) Are they a registered broker dealer? Broker dealers have to be registered with FINRA and the SEC , which have their own databases for you to look up individuals and companies. here is FINRA's http://www.finra.org/Investors/ToolsCalculators/BrokerCheck/ FINRA is a self-regulatory agency, the SEC is a federal government agency. All things considered, they pretty much have similar legislative authority over the industry. But thats a different story. If the broker isn't able to produce information that would confirm their registration status, or if you can't readily find it in the regulators database, then that is a major red flag. The biggest red flag of them all. 2) If brokers are also acting as a consumer bank, such as how Merrill Lynch is now part of Bank of America and the accounts can be linked pretty easily, then they should will also be regulated by the FDIC. This means that you will be able to find the capital ratio that the company has, letting you know how stable it is as an institution. Physical locations, the name, and duration of existence, or their rating on BBB have nothing to do with it. "This is not a normal occurrence, and you have every right to be annoyed, but the technical way it usually happens goes like this: What can happen is when the merchant incorrectly completes the transaction without referencing the pre-authorization transaction. The bank effectively doesn't ""know"" this is the same transaction, so they process it the same way they process any other purchase, and it has no effect on the pre-authorization and related held/pending transaction. As far as the bank knows, you purchased a second set of blinds in the store for $200 and are still waiting on the first order to come in, they have no idea the store screwed up. The reason this is possible is the purpose of the pre-auth in the first place is that it is a contractual agreement between the bank (credit card) and the merchant that the funds are available, will be available except under rare special circumstances, and thus they can go ahead and process the order. This lets the merchant be secure in the knowledge that they can collect their payment, but you aren't paying interest or monthly payments on something you haven't even gotten yet! This system works reasonably well for everyone - right up until someone screws up and fails to properly release a hold, makes a second transaction instead of properly referencing the first one, or the bank screws up their system and fails to correctly match referenced pre-authorization codes to purchases. The problem is that this should not be a normal occurrence, and the people you are speaking with to try to sort out the issue often do not have the authority or knowledge necessary to properly fix the issue, or its such a hassle for them that they hope you just go away and time fixes the issue on its own. The only sure-fire solution to this is: make sure you have so much extra credit line that this doesn't effect you and you can safely let it time out on its own, or stop doing business with this combination of merchant/payment that creates the problem. Back when my credit limits were being pushed, I would never pay at gas pumps because their hold polices were so weird and unpredictable, and I would only pre-pay inside or with cash to avoid the holds." The FDIC insures deposits up to $250,000 per depositor, per bank, for each ownership category.  The ownership categories are: You and a spouse could collectively have $750,000 of insured deposits at a single bank if you each had a single account, and a joint account together. My bank did fine the first couple years of handling my escrow, then out of the blue, totally messed it up and cost me a lot of time straightening it all out with them as well as straightening out with my taxing authority.  I told them to send me the balance of the escrow and cancel it, that I would handle it from then on and they did.  There was a qualification that I met, I just can't remember what that was. I too have a lot of equity and was never late on a payment.  I also manage it via direct deposit from my paychecks into interest bearing accounts. "You're supposed to be filling form 433-A. Vehicles are on line 18. You will fill there the current fair value of the car and the current balance on the loans. The last column is ""equity"", which in your case will indeed be a negative number. The ""value"" is what the car is worth. The ""equity"" is what the car is worth to you. IRS uses the ""equity"" value to calculate your solvency. Any time you fill a form to the IRS - read the instructions carefully, for each line and line. If in doubt - talk to a professional licensed in your state. I'm not a professional, and this is not a tax advice." "The only ""authoritative document"" issued by the IRS to date relating to Cryptocurrencies is Notice 2014-21. It has this to say as the first Q&A: Q-1: How is virtual currency treated for federal tax purposes?   A-1: For federal tax purposes, virtual currency is treated as property. General tax principles applicable to property transactions apply to transactions using virtual currency. That is to say, it should be treated as property like any other asset. Basis reporting the same as any other property would apply, as described in IRS documentation like Publication 550, Investment Income and Expenses and Publication 551, Basis of Assets. You should be able to use the same basis tracking method as you would use for any other capital asset like stocks or bonds. Per Publication 550 ""How To Figure Gain or Loss"", You figure gain or loss on a sale or trade of property by comparing the amount you realize with the adjusted basis of the property. Gain. If the amount you realize from a sale or trade is more than the adjusted basis of the property you transfer, the difference is a gain. Loss. If the adjusted basis of the property you transfer is more than the amount you realize, the difference is a loss.  That is, the assumption with property is that you would be using specific identification. There are specific rules for mutual funds to allow for using average cost or defaulting to FIFO, but for general ""property"", including individual stocks and bonds, there is just Specific Identification or FIFO (and FIFO is just making an assumption about what you're choosing to sell first in the absence of any further information). You don't need to track exactly ""which Bitcoin"" was sold in terms of exactly how the transactions are on the Bitcoin ledger, it's just that you bought x bitcoins on date d, and when you sell a lot of up to x bitcoins you specify in your own records that the sale was of those specific bitcoins that you bought on date d and report it on your tax forms accordingly and keep track of how much of that lot is remaining. It works just like with stocks, where once you buy a share of XYZ Corp on one date and two shares on another date, you don't need to track the movement of stock certificates and ensure that you sell that exact certificate, you just identify which purchase lot is being sold at the time of sale." A 529 has a custodian and beneficiary. If, say, my Mom is custodian and my daughter the beneficiary, neither my daughter, my wife, nor I can access this account. In fact, if my daughter chooses not to attend college, Mom can change beneficiaries.  So, a 529 is ideal for what you have described.  By the way, your wife may have broken the law. Money in your child's name/SSN cannot simply be taken from the account at a parent's whim. You have every right to ask for an accounting of that money and insist she return it to your child's account.  Edit - I was going to add that UTMA money may only be spent for the benefit of the child, and not for day to day items, food, clothing, etc. The article The proper use of UTMA funds provides a bit of support to my position on that.