Should post-dated cheques be accepted by a bank?

Barny1979

Should post-dated cheques be accepted by a bank?
I gave someone 4 post dated chequest, one was for the 8th June, the next 3 were for the 15th, 22nd and 29th. Should the bank have accepted them before the date on the cheque?

Barny1979

Apparently they can

• you must not write a future date on it

as it may not prevent the payee from

paying it into their bank before that date.

Didn't realise

Extant

The Bills of Exchange Act also says that a bill (in this case a cheque) is bill is "not invalid by reason only that it is ... post-dated."

A bank may refuse to take them on the grounds that they may be returned as unpaid (i.e. if you had not ensured funds were readily available by the post-date), but they are not legally prohibited from taking them, no.

realaledrinker

You assume that the banks actually look at the date on the cheque. I have no idea of the numbers, but let's say 1 in 100,000 cheques are post dated.

Would you employ teams of people to check the date of each & every cheque when presented & put the 1 in 100,000 aside & manually deal with them as & when, or would you just pay them all & sort out the 0.00001% which complain after the event?

What would YOU do?

Sharon87

I should think the staff at the bank check for numerous things on a cheque - signature, the right amount written down compared to the numbers and the date.

My friend applied for a job at a bank and part of the test she had to do was to do with cheques and one question was should you accept post-dated cheques and the answer was no.

Extant

The decision to take a cheque post-dated is the beneficiary bank's choice entirely, their primary concern should be making sure it's going to the right person.

It's the paying bank's responsibility/decision to then pay/unpay a cheque based on signature or technicalities.