The Lemon Fool

By agreement a tenant will be making a payment in instalments, post-dated cheques have been received.

One cheque is dated 30 February 2020. Would it be advisable for me to get the tenant to change the date on the cheque to say 28 February (or 29 February) or would you think the bank would accept the cheque if paid in to the account on 1 March 2020?

tia
Bnc

My thought is that the banks don't even look at signatures or dates these days. So I think there's a very good chance it will go through. UNLESS the writer subsequently challenges it. (But if you're worried about that he could in theory cancel ALL the cheques before you pay them in)

First google match agrees: https://www.lawyerment.com/library/kb/B ... t/1484.htm
"A cheque dated on a non-existing date, for example 30 February..., should be paid according to its prior valid date."

Gryff

It's one of those "it depends" type questions.

In theory, if deposited, it should be returned as being technically incorrect but in practice I'd be very surprised if any bank would quibble.

When I worked for a council and we were depositing several hundred cheque daily, we found every bank would exercise discretion for a week or two over cheques drawn with the old year in the date, eg we would be able to deposit a cheque with 1 Jan 2019 on it tomorrow, even though it should have been returned to us, and your query is in a similar vein.

My advice would be that if it's relatively easy to get it reissued (or if it's a hand written cheque, simply amended and initialled by the drawer) I would do that, but if there is a problem doing this, I'd simply ignore it and hope for the best.

Staffordian

gryffron wrote:My thought is that the banks don't even look at signatures or dates these days. So I think there's a very good chance it will go through. UNLESS the writer subsequently challenges it. (But if you're worried about that he could in theory cancel ALL the cheques before you pay them in)
First google match agrees: https://www.lawyerment.com/library/kb/B ... t/1484.htm
"A cheque dated on a non-existing date, for example 30 February..., should be paid according to its prior valid date." Gryff

According to the link the legislation is Section 13 (2) of Bills of Exchange Act 1949 (Act 204). However, having searched legislation.gov.uk, I cannot find a 1949 Act However, I have found Bills of Exchange Act 1882 whose s13(2) "A bill is not invalid by reason only that it is ante-dated or post-dated, or that it bears date on a Sunday"

--

Thanks to you and others for the comments.

I am going to take a chance.

Snorvey wrote:I'd just use the auto pay in machines* inside the bank.

You can do it with a smartphone app these days. Just scan the cheque in the comfort of your own home. I did it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Very slick. Unfortunately mine has a £500 limit, so I'm still going to have to visit the pay in machine occasionally.

Gryff

gryffron wrote:

Snorvey wrote:I'd just use the auto pay in machines* inside the bank.

You can do it with a smartphone app these days. Just scan the cheque in the comfort of your own home. I did it for the first time a couple of weeks ago. Very slick. Unfortunately mine has a £500 limit, so I'm still going to have to visit the pay in machine occasionally.

Gryff

this depends on your bank apparently... i heard about such apps and got all excited but then found that First Direct/HSBC doesnt have such a beast/facility. (this just a very few months ago)

didds wrote:this depends on your bank apparently... i heard about such apps and got all excited but then found that First Direct/HSBC doesnt have such a beast/facility. (this just a very few months ago)

Mine is HSBC. As I said, I first used it earlier this month. I don't know when they added it.

didds wrote:this depends on your bank apparently... i heard about such apps and got all excited but then found that First Direct/HSBC doesnt have such a beast/facility. (this just a very few months ago)

Yes it's quite impressive in action. My brother opened a Christmas card on Christmas Day with a cheque in it, and 2 minutes later had the amount credited to his account.

Pity First Direct don't don't do it, though the scarcity of cheques these days means it might not be worth the effort.

Scott.

gryffron wrote:

didds wrote:
this depends on your bank apparently... i heard about such apps and got all excited but then found that First Direct/HSBC doesnt have such a beast/facility. (this just a very few months ago)

Mine is HSBC. As I said, I first used it earlier this month. I don't know when they added it.

Details here from the HSBC website -

You can now pay in cheques using the HSBC UK Mobile Banking app

https://www.hsbc.co.uk/ways-to-bank/mobile/cheque-deposit/

The app is available for both Apple and Android platforms -

Apple - https://apps.apple.com/gb/app/id1220329065

Android - https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=uk.co.hsbc.hsbcukmobilebanking

Cheers,

Itsallaguess

gryffron wrote:My thought is that the banks don't even look at signatures or dates these days. So I think there's a very good chance it will go through.

Yes and in fact a cheque will even go through if it is presented BEFORE the date written on the cheque.

When this happened to me the bank teller told me that a bank is actually under no legal obligation to inspect the date and then either delay the processing or return it. Basically if a cheque is presented then it will be processed as long as it has a date, an amount and a payee. It might bounce because of insufficient funds of course.

For that reason I stopped accepting or issuing post-dated cheques.

I lodged a cheque in Cd$ (along with some others) with the Bank of Scotland a few days within the 6-month period of validity. It was duly returned to me as the bank tried to argue that the 6-month validity period needed to include their processing time. I complained as I had not seen this requirement anywhere in writing (but I suppose the cheque should reach the issueing bank within the 6-month period). So, in this case the bank definitely took careful note of the date.
I arranged to have the cheque reissued and the bank refunded the second £8.00 charge for conversion.

I presented a cheque to Barclays one day before the 6-month expiry, and it went through without any problem.

- K

To combine the two emerging themes in this thread, paying cheques by app is great, I've done it a number of times, and I've just had one refused because the image of the date on the cheque was unclear.

I upgraded my phone around a year ago in order to use the cheque imaging app with the Bank of Scotland. Experience has been mixed - the first cheque I tried to credit was over the £500 limit and was not accepted - invariably I find that several attempts are necessary to obtain an acceptable image. I too had one cheque returned as my name was not totally imaged properly. Foreign currency cheques cannot be handled using the app. However when it works well it is good and certainly beats making a trip to a branch - hopefully the app will improve over the passage of time.

brightncheerful wrote:

gryffron wrote:My thought is that the banks don't even look at signatures or dates these days. So I think there's a very good chance it will go through. UNLESS the writer subsequently challenges it. (But if you're worried about that he could in theory cancel ALL the cheques before you pay them in)
First google match agrees: https://www.lawyerment.com/library/kb/B ... t/1484.htm
"A cheque dated on a non-existing date, for example 30 February..., should be paid according to its prior valid date." Gryff

According to the link the legislation is Section 13 (2) of Bills of Exchange Act 1949 (Act 204). However, having searched legislation.gov.uk, I cannot find a 1949 Act However, I have found Bills of Exchange Act 1882 whose s13(2) "A bill is not invalid by reason only that it is ante-dated or post-dated, or that it bears date on a Sunday"

--

Thanks to you and others for the comments.

I am going to take a chance.

Searching for Act 204 of 1949 found this to be an Act under the Laws of Malaysia so I wouldn't rely on it too much!

swill453 wrote:

didds wrote:this depends on your bank apparently... i heard about such apps and got all excited but then found that First Direct/HSBC doesnt have such a beast/facility. (this just a very few months ago)

Yes it's quite impressive in action. My brother opened a Christmas card on Christmas Day with a cheque in it, and 2 minutes later had the amount credited to his account.

Pity First Direct don't don't do it, though the scarcity of cheques these days means it might not be worth the effort.

To follow up on this - First Direct have now introduced the cheque pay-in facility in their banking app.

Scott.

swill453 wrote:To follow up on this - First Direct have now introduced the cheque pay-in facility in their banking app.

Scott.

thats great news!

didds