Uncashed cheque: binned by mistake

Lilio8

Hello All.

 As always, I return to this forum when I don't have anywhere else to turn to. Right now, I’m in an absolute state of complete anxiety. I didn't sleep last night! I’m totally frozen! Help!!! 

 I was tidying up the folder as it was long overdue, shredded junk mail and general rubbish, or so I thought. Then realised too late that there was a refund that ended up in the bin. It was a small sum less than £60. It was never cashed, since I would always send all the cheques with refunds to the solicitors. But I obviously missed this one.  Flipping heck! I can’t believe I’ve done this! I’m near to the end of the administration of the estate.

The solicitors sent the accounts to HMRC with adjustments before Christmas and won’t be too pleased about this. How do I tell them about this horrible mishap? Have I just caused a horrible situation? Is this going to cost me another bundle? I don’t know what to do? It's obviously my fault, the executor’s fault, responsibility etc… What do I want for 2026? This probate to be wound up and put it behind me for good! It’s taking a lot out of me! Oh and no wars ('dream on' a few might say).

MeteredOut

Who issued the cheque? Contact them and they should be able to cancel the one you've destroyed and issue a new one, probably minus an administrative fee.

Whether they'll actually make the effort to do that will depend on who they are.

bobster2

If this £60 has already been listed/included in the estate accounts as an asset - then surely there's no need to change the accounts or information submitted to HMRC. You just need to pay the missing £60 into the estate bank account. So you can either try to get the cheque reissued as suggested by @MeteredOut or just cough up £60 yourself and stick it in the account. Given the amount of worry this has caused you - £60 could be money well spent!

If this £60 refund was not listed/included in the estate accounts - i.e. the solicitors didn't know about it. Then who will notice it's missing? The administrative costs associated with adding a newly discovered small sum to the estate accounts could exceed £60. Some less diligent people would just forget the cheque existed. Yes - not entirely honest but this wouldn't be for personal gain (in fact if you're a beneficiary then you would be losing out).

RAS

We had to engage legal help for less usual reasons, having planned to self administer.

The legal executive got hugely excited about a tiny life insurance policy. Which was less than the fee for her time. 

I told her to stop looking. The shredded cheque really isn't worth the legal costs.

Lilio8

RAS said:

We had to engage legal help for less usual reasons, having planned to self administer.

The legal executive got hugely excited about a tiny life insurance policy. Which was less than the fee for her time. 

I told her to stop looking. The shredded cheque really isn't worth the legal costs.

I too came across an unexpected Life annuity worth less than £20 and it took months to get a response from the company. Solicitors bill me for the work, though.