BS: Personal checks--how long till void?

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: gnu
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 04:58 PM

You callin me a three year old Art? hehehehehe

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 04:54 PM

So?

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: artbrooks
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 04:28 PM

This is a 3-year-old discussion.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: gnu
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 04:10 PM

Generally, a cheque is good for a year (six months in some jurisdictions). Surely your records could verify cashing either way?

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 03:58 PM

If it hasn't been paid in after a reasonable length of time (whatevwer time seems reasonable to you) surely you'd just instruct the bank to cancel it. If the person gets on to you wanting payment, because it was refused, make out a new cheque.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: gnu
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 03:55 PM

My cheques are better than cash. And when they want a credit card, I tell them I never had any need for one.... check my credit.... check my address... check my real property... check my debts and liens... I CAN go to the bank and get cash, but I won't be back here... your call.

Fact is, if it's a big ticket item, ya shouldn't use plastic... simply because, if yer plastic credit limit is THAT high, you are subject to personal identity theft and fraud.

VISA has been increasing my limit by thousnads lately... not more than twenty minutes ago, I called them and had them reduce the limit by half. It's only prudent.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: GUEST,dp
Date: 23 Oct 09 - 03:43 PM

i wrote a check to the gentleman that framed my house out of my construction account and he called me today to say he found the check. i am responsible for this debt? this was three years ago i paid some people cash and i also wrote checks out of another account. how do i know i didnt pay him from another account?

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 10:06 PM

This account was closed over a year after the plumber's service, so that isn't a problem, but I still haven't seen the checks go through though this woman assured me that she would deposit them on the 4th. I don't have any way to reach her, except perhaps if I research the tax records for that house (she was one of their daughters). I'd get the name of the deceased parents who owned it and might backtrack from there. But it isn't easy.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 08:28 PM

In canada youd have a tough time enforcing any bad cheque law as the police regarding a civil problem.

(as far as the outfit that never cashed the cheque given to them,
it could be that they have totally overlooked it - and dont even know
so Id let them get back to me about it)

In our business when we received some nsf cheques (years ago), the police had no interest in the matter however, they said you could file fraud charges if someone wrote cheques on a closed account.

They are good for six months in Canada as well, although you can
still cash bounced cheques if you go and certify them in the branch (usually end of the month - around rent time is best)

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 11 Jan 06 - 08:02 PM

Archaic state law once made an "insufficient funds" check a misdemeaner, so trivial it would seldom be prosecuted, but a "no funds" check was a low level felony. A friend(?) claims once to have deposited pennies until the check he was given cleared (with the aid of a circumspect but sympathetic teller). Of course this did leave a zero balance, and the cheater's next check ...

The law's been changed.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 10:01 PM

My bookkeeping is a lot more efficient now that I'm using the accounting software in conjunction with online banking and the ability to download information. It can be quite entertaining, and last year I read some of the tax tips that came along on Microsoft's Money site and I saved some money on a couple of items I didn't realize I could take advantage of.

Whether a check is way back in the register, so far that the pages have been tucked under the top cover, or is way up in the database, so far back that it can't be seen if you're looking at the last 3 months only, it is reckless of people who take checks for payment to hold onto them for a long time. It may be their right to hold onto it for a while (no one has actually disputed that, and the point was made that this kind of debts were once passed along way beyond "second-party checks" before collection). Holding it for a long time does increase the odds that the money won't be there when the check is presented.

I met a friend of a friend years ago, a mechanic, who told me about having to sometimes bend a few rules to get what he could from a bad check. If he presented a check and it bounced, he would then call the bank later to ask if that amount would clear ("Will a $50 check clear?"). If it didn't, he called back again and reduced the amount he asked about ("Will a $45 check clear?") and down until he found the threshold (because the banks won't give an exact balance.) Say they came back and said a $40 check would clear. He had the check with the account number and name, so he filled in a counter deposit slip and deposited $10 of his own. He then went back around and presented the check to get back his $10 and their $40. It probably wasn't a foolproof plan, but seemed to work well enough for him even in the days before all of the instant online management of accounts.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Uncle_DaveO
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 11:02 AM

If nothing else, a "void after 'X' days" note (regardless of its legal status) may build a fire under the payee to get it moving down the way.

It's worth noting that a check is not "legal tender". In case that expression isn't meaningful to you, cash IS legal tender, which means that if you owe an amount and offer "the coin of the realm" so to speak (maybe it should be "bills of the realm today), and the recipient refuses to take it, his refusal discharges the debt. As I say, that doesn't apply to checks.

Dave Oesterreich

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: GUEST
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 08:16 AM

I handle about twenty five payments checks to me every week. They each have printed on them: void after 180 days. Nothing is stopping you from writing that or having it printed on your own checks to stop other people's poor bookkeeping habits from playing havoc with your accounts. Good luck!

garg, you missed the point

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 10 Jan 06 - 12:02 AM

Most 'carnival, market-place, flea-market, boot-faires.....will NOT accept any sort of Credit (Visa, MC, ABM) Card....the problem for the retailer is ....the ...the product may be recieved, returned, and the payment for services denied.

A "personal check" is accounted (USA) as the equivalent as payment in cash....If there are not sufficent funds....you may be prossecuted and taken to a court of law.

Do not write checks on funds that are not within your IMMEDIATE account. For outstanding checks allow up to one FULL Calendar Year....for the funds to process.

You bought it....you vouched safe to your account that your funds would cover the agreement. Unless there was a "material dispute" why attempt to "cheat the merchant?"

Sincerely,

Gargoyle

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 11:43 AM

I just realized as I read Nigel's answer that that account doesn't exist any more. After a burglary here in February 2005 I changed all of those accounts. So stopping payment on that check would be unnecessary.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Nigel Parsons
Date: 09 Jan 06 - 05:57 AM

SRS:
From a UK perspective, in the plumber case I'd call the bank to put a 'stop' on that particular cheque/check just to make sure it cannot be paid. Then you don't need to keep the inflated balance in your current/checking account. There may be a small fee, but this will always be less than a plumber's bill. Should he call on you later to settle a three year old bill you could justifiably reduce the bill by the bank's fee which he has caused you

CHEERS
Nigel

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 11:21 PM

I did mention this electronic aspect earlier, in that I pay most bills online but those paid by check sometimes go through the same day they are received because they are converted to an electronic form. i.e., my DishNetwork payment turns up very fast now, though it used to take a couple of weeks. The mortgage check used to take (what seemed like) forever to clear. Martin is right--you must be sure that the bucks are there when you write it, because they can get it out fast. I don't shop at Walmart very often, but last year I was in there and watched as the clerk took the check from a woman in line ahead of me, ran it through a reader machine, then handed the cancelled check back to the woman. I hope she wasn't writing it with the idea it would float around for a couple of days!

And now that we are so accustomed to the cash flying out of our accounts, the slow folks who hold checks for ages are all of the more conspicuous for their rarity.

As I said before, I'm interested in understanding where the lines, both practical and moral, lie when it comes to one person paying a bill with a check and the recipient cashing it in a reasonable amount of time. This isn't the equivalent of the postal rule that says if someone sends you (YOU, not for someone else but misaddressed) an unsolicited item that you don't need to pay for it. A transaction has taken place, but is a person unreasonable to expect the check to be cashed within six months? If not, can they move on and dedicate that money to something else? I had no way to track down the woman I wrote the check to, she didn't live in the house (now sold to someone else) where I met her. In general it is fine that she called, I have always wondered about those checks and I enjoy the items I purchased.

Here's a part two to the question: Almost three years ago I wrote a check to a plumber in the area. I carried that amount in my checking account for many months, perhaps as long as a year. They still haven't presented the check. I don't have that amount floating either, though it is in savings. Would you call the plumber and ask why they haven't cashed a check?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 10:13 PM

Either that, or write it and don't mail it for a few days.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:46 PM

You're right on that, Martin. And I've had Idaho checks accepted in Illinois, Kentucky, Ohio, and Indiana because of the electronic connections. The only way to "kite" a check is to put it in the US mail and play the difference in time between when you wrote it and when they post it at the other end.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Once Famous
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:35 PM

I'm surprised that no one has mentioned that many places that accept checks now take the funds out of your account immediately and electronically.

The days of "the float" are virtually over.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:06 PM

... not to mention restating what I stated several posts back. :~)

~S~

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 09:03 PM

Sorry for stating the obvious.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 08:55 PM

The difference between traveller's cheques and personal cheques is that the traveller's cheques have been paid for upfront. Personal cheques can bounce if the money isn't in the account at the time the cheque is cashed.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 08:53 PM

Interesting. And the point about estate management is a whole different aspect to this. It can be a slow process going through someone's personal papers, and the discovery of uncashed checks to someone involved in that task just means more cash to include in probate. I found some very old traveler's checks at my Dad's house, so old that I had to send them off somewhere and the bank eventually received notice that they cleared and deposited that amount to the probate account.

It does mean that from a practical standpoint I'd probably choose to go get cash instead of write another check in such a situation. I only write a few a month any more, and sometime back I stopped carrying a checkbook altogether.

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Ironmule
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 05:29 PM

From a business law course I took long ago, a check is a formal type of IOU that businesses and banks have agreed to process promptly. In the 17th and 18th centuries, a paper promiss to pay some amount on demand might have made it's way from person to business to person across national borders for several years before being presented for payment, each person along the way discounting it a little towards the risk it wouldn't be paid. Now the movement from presentation to your bank account happens with electronic immediacy.   

Even though the check becomes void after some period, in the sense of your bank's obligation to honor it promptly when presented, the legal obligation of the writer to pay the specified debt remains. In Florida at the time I took the course, non-payment became a felony ten days after presentation of the check, but there wasn't any mention then about long delays before presentation.

Writing a check was as paradigm changing for mailorder businesses a century ago, as interet purchasing has been in the last 20yrs.

Jeff Smith, history nut

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: katlaughing
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 03:21 PM

I wouldn't give her any more checks, if she says they won't cash the ones you gave her. I'd make sure to give her a money order in exchange for the old checks, or cash with a receipt AND the old checks so you can dispose of them.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Peace
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 03:08 PM

Ask the manager of your bank.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: JohnInKansas
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 02:59 PM

The bank has the right to reject any check that looks "suspicious," and the "void after six months" is just a protection to the bank. Whether a check you write and someone holds without processing is a "legal discharge of debt" is an entirely different matter, and there doesn't appear to be clear precedent for any specific time period.

Any check you write, that is not honored by your bank, may be reported as a "bad check" on your credit record, although individuals are unlikely to pursue reporting. The bank is protected by the banking regulation, but you are not.

So far as the recipient of the check is concerned, your bank's refusal to honor it for any reason just means you wrote a bad check, and you need to make some other arrangement to make good.

The "make good" action may just consist of the recipient's agreement that it's his/her fault and they'll forget about it; but consider the possiblility that an executor of someone's estate could find an old check and might be a.r. enough to try to resubmit it. The question would become, not whether the check was good, but whether the debt was paid, and the executor would have (or would be) a lawyer. The resolution should include return of the "dead" check to you, or its confirmed defacement (if you're at all paranoid).

An "other side of the coin" to note is that when a bank rejects payment on a check that you received from someone else the rejected check remains your property and should be returned to you. Banks vary on how they handle this, but you need the rejected check to pursue other collection of the payment that was promised, and they should give it to you on request if they didn't return it to you automatically when presented.

Very old checks and other promissories occasionally turn up, as in the case of the general who "paid" for billeting troops in someone's barn back in 1777. The very old ones usually are dismissed, but often only after consultation with lawyers and courts (and/or legislatures) to find some legal pretext to weasel out of payment.

Of course, that's the US story (IMO-IANAL). In other places there may be precedents of other kinds.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Rapparee
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:59 PM

Six months. After that the checks are (theoretically) void.

But to be fair and ethical you should write another check if they are refused by the bank.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:49 PM

Well, I think I am presenting the practical side.... you would want to consult an attorney about your obligations on an old bill. I am not sure that tendering a check makes an express time limit on paying the bill-- as I indicated, the check does represent a promise to pay. I would doubt that it does, but I am not an attorney, although I did work in check processing briefly a long time ago.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:48 PM

By the way, exceptions to the six-month rule are routinely made around the first of the year when it's common for people to put the wrong year when dating their checks. It's easy enough for a bank to determine whether or not it's just a simple mistake by comparing the check number with others recently written on the account.

In the thirty years I spent in retail sales, I know a number of January checks with the wrong year had to have slipped through, but I never had a single one returned for that reason.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:38 PM

I think, Susan, you're presenting an ethical side of things. I wonder what the legal side says about old bills, if the opportunity to collect was provided but not accepted in a timely fashion?

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:35 PM

We cross-posted.

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:34 PM

Interesting!

I haven't seen them turn up in the system, though she said she'd turn them in on the 4th. I wonder if the bank has refused them? (I wonder if a human at the bank even looks at them or if they're all automated?)

If the check is declined due to old age, does that mean the obligation to pay that amount is discharged? Would you write a new check, or decline to pay the outstanding bill? (Just curious--I'm not planning to be a 'bad neighbor' and not pay for the garage sale items.)

SRS

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: wysiwyg
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:31 PM

A check represents a promise to pay when presented, so it's on you to honor the promise. Although the bank will have a policy on how long their checks are good, the people who process them do not always look at the check date when they handle them. Most of the processing now is automated so they are batch loaded, not cared for check by check.

It is annoying when people hold them, but that's part of using checks. They aren't part of the "instantaneus" world we have all come to expect with the speed of our society and many of the tools we use.

So, if it is really important to you that things be processed quickly, you may want to carry some traveler's checks to use when dealing with non-commercial establishments. With those, once you buy the traveler's checks, your money is spent. Redeeming them then becomes the responsibility of the payee. If the check expires they can recontact you for a trade for a new payment and you can explain they need to process it promptly.

Another option, of course, is to stop payment on any check left outstanding over 90 days (or whatever). Again, however, the check will probably be processsed when presented, and there may be a runaround on setting it all straight between you, bank, and payee.

Of course, it probably SHOULD be that people are thoughtful about these things. But the reality is, they aren't always, and since you can't control what they will do, you CAN choose a tool that works better for YOU.

~Susan

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Bee-dubya-ell
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:29 PM

According to bankersonline.com, six months.

"A bank is under no obligation to a customer having a checking account to pay a check, other than a certified check, which is presented more than six months after its date, but it may charge its customer's account for a payment made thereafter in good faith."

Subject: RE: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: pdq
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:19 PM

The check was probably void after 6 months. Putting "void after 90 days" probably does not have any legal standing. Banking is heavily regulated, as is everything businesses do. What counts is the portion of the civil codes pertaining to such transactions.

Subject: BS: Personal checks--how long till void?
From: Stilly River Sage
Date: 08 Jan 06 - 01:11 PM

This is probably one of those ethical questions that has a small-print legal component from the banks in question. I'm interested in both aspects of this.

Every so often I'll write a check that the individual who receives it holds for a ridiculously long time before cashing. A common example is that sometimes school fundraisers will hold the checks until the entire program has finished, then deposit them. Most checks written to pay bills clear within two weeks, some will clear the same day if they convert them electronically. I pay most things with the debit card or online so am accustomed to quick processing. Then there are these paper stragglers.

Last March, 2005, I wrote a couple of checks to a woman up the street for items at their garage sale. They didn't clear and they didn't clear, and after about four weeks I had occasion to see her (they were settling an estate at that house so weren't always around) and ask about the checks. She was adamant they had been cashed. I still tracked them in my program (Microsoft Money) for months, finally deleting them out in November or so. So guess what--I got a call on the next to the last day of December from a woman asking if she can deposit these checks. At least she had the decency to check at the bank to see if they would clear--last day of the month in which christmas occurs is not likely to be a particularly flush time, and they not only wouldn't have cleared, they'd have added lots of over-draft protection and transfer fees (it doesn't cost any less than having an overdraft penalty, it just looks neater on paper and the bank fools people into thinking they're doing them a favor).

I am thinking now that I should have written on the memo line something like "Void after 90 days" like you see on the checks that come from product rebates. They don't want to keep those accounts open forever, doling out piddly amounts. So they include an expiration date.

Can one do this on personal checks? It may be variable from state to state. Has anyone else tried this? If I were to add that note, I'd point it out the the recipient, and I'd be sure to keep track in the register until that date, but I suppose I'd have to take some action at the bank to deny the check if it came in after that. If there was a cost to stop the check that might be as big a pain as the old check going through so late.

I don't need a lecture on keeping money in my checking account--I usually have extra in there, and have taken the step to add overdraft protection and there is ample in savings to cover any check I write. But what recourse does the average consumer have regarding the annoyance of keeping track of these checks after so much time passes? How do some of our Mudcat artisans handle checks? I would think you'd cash them as fast as you can get to the bank. If you find you've held one for a long time, what do you do? I was annoyed at this woman, but glad she handled it how she did, and told her to deposit the checks after the first. I've again made note in my accounting program that they're coming through.

SRS