6 year old cheque

helphelphelphelp

My friend moved in August 2006 and in Sept 2006 was sent a cheque for nearly £9k from the solicitor. However they have only just found the cheque and the solicitor that issued it are no longer in business. Is there any way they can get this money?
(though have no idea how someone forgets to bank a cheque this big!)

Thanks

G_M

They 'forgot' £9000?

:rotfl::rotfl::rotfl:



http://www.paymentscouncil.org.uk/payment_advice/key_payment_questions/

Is it true that a cheque is only valid for six months?

A cheque is valid for as long as the debt between the two parties (i.e. issuer and payee) exists. In other words, cheques do not have an expiration date.
Notwithstanding the above, it is common banking practice to reject a cheque presented for payment bearing a date more than six months earlier to protect the payer, on the basis that payment may already have been made by some other means or the cheque may have been lost or stolen. However this is at the discretion of individual banks.
However, where there is a dispute, a cheque remains legally valid in order to prove a debt for a period of six years, which is the Statute of Limitations.

However, if the solicitor has gone out of business and their account has been (presumably) closed, the cheque is unlikely to clear!

whitewing

They could speak to the Law Society who may be able to give them advice.

Freecall

As the name of this site suggests we are all 'money savers' on here.

I doubt that anyone has experience of 'forgetting' £9k!

amjustagirl

Come on is your friend for real?! If said friend forgot to claim back 9k after 6 long years they can't really need it.

thelem

The important thing here is that the solicitor has gone out of business with your friend as a creditor. When that happened (and I'm assuming insolvency), your friend would have needed to make a claim with the administrators by a certain deadline. The administrator would then use whatever money they could raise from the assets of the business to honour as much of the cheque as they could afford.

As your friend has almost certainly missed this deadline, the pot will have been divided between the other creditors, and there will be no money left to pay your friend.

G_M

amjustagirl wrote: »

Come on is your friend for real?! If said friend forgot to claim back 9k after 6 long years they can't really need it.

Perhaps it took 6 years to spend the lottary money, and now they do need it!

ps - when your baby toy grows up, will it be a man toy or a lady toy?

BobQ

Are you sure that this cheque was not lost in the post but eventually delivered. If said friend is scatty enough or wealthy enough not to have noticed, is it possible they asked the solicitor to send a new cheque and that the original was cancelled but later turned up.

Also maybe the solicitor merged with another firm or sold the business in to another firm in which case it may be a valid debt owned by another lucky solicitor.

Owain_Moneysaver

When a solicitor's practice closes another firm will take over any remaining files. There should have been an accounting including 'cheques issued but not yet presented'. Possibly the taking-over firm has money in their client account corresponding to the unpresented cheque.

The Law Society (if in England/Wales) should be able to advise.

ruggedtoast

Yeah, this happens to me all the time. Orange gave me £10.11 credit when I cancelled my phone and I forgot to bank it. Then I couldn't.

It's just the same.

observations_from_a_hill

Yes, as Owain Moneysaver states, any client account credit balances will have been passed to a successor firm.

So suggest they pay in the cheque to their bank account.