Credit Discrimination: 5.6.6 When Do Applicants Voluntarily Enter into a Joint Account?
When a joint, rather than an individual, application for credit is made, the creditor clearly has the right to ask for the signature of both persons involved.330 However, in order for an account to be truly joint and thus avoid ECOA co-signer limitations, the co-signer must have voluntarily entered into the loan. The official interpretations state that a joint applicant “refers to someone who applies contemporaneously with the applicant for shared or joint credit.