Question about cheque clearing

davery83

Hopefully a quick question! If I send someone a cheque and they bank it today for instance, when would the funds be taken from my account? I always thought there was a clearing process, whereby the funds are reserved in my account (taken from my available balance) and then are taken a couple of days later?
Basically, having sent 3 SAR letters about 2 months ago, a bank has just cashed a cheque (the others cashed theirs within a week), and left me without enough funds for a direct debit which has been paid by the bank and then charged me a fee. I have moved funds into this account to make sure I'm not overdrawn.
I always thought there was an order to which banks sorted transactions, ie direct debits come out first, with deposits being last?
Thanks for any help!

Olipro

if the payee is with the same bank then yes, the funds are generally taken from your account immediately.

in this case I doubt that's the case so you can expect a clearance time of 3-4 working days.

The order in which banks apply credits and debits is largely irrelevant now, if your balance turns negative due to one transaction and then immediately positive again due to another transaction, with both occuring on the same day then it's not an overdraft, alternatively, if your bank turned negative only today, and you transferred funds to the account before the evening, you would also get away with it.

in your case it sounds like your account went negative and stayed there, if that's not the case I suggest you phone up the bank and threaten them with the ombudsman for taking the p*ss

davery83

Olipro wrote: »

if the payee is with the same bank then yes, the funds are generally taken from your account immediately.

in this case I doubt that's the case so you can expect a clearance time of 3-4 working days.

The order in which banks apply credits and debits is largely irrelevant now, if your balance turns negative due to one transaction and then immediately positive again due to another transaction, with both occuring on the same day then it's not an overdraft, alternatively, if your bank turned negative only today, and you transferred funds to the account before the evening, you would also get away with it.

in your case it sounds like your account went negative and stayed there, if that's not the case I suggest you phone up the bank and threaten them with the ombudsman for taking the p*ss

According to my statement, I never went negative (over my overdraft) on 23rd March even with the fee:
(newest first, balance in brackets)

Direct Debit £9.00 (-£299.94)
Cheque £10.00 (-£290.94)
Payment Review Fee - Item Paid £25.00 (-£280.94)
Bank Credit £33.00 (-£255.94)

I have a £300.00 overdraft.
Although I made a transfer after all these things (Bank Credit) and I'm not entirely sure which the fee applies to. As you said, surely the cheque would take a few days to clear and not be instant on my account one day?