50 pound notes !!

[Jean-F]

I haven't found anywhere that refuses £50 notes, businesses can't refuse legal tender for the settlement of a debt like a restaurant meal or taxi fare etc anyway.

I think that you’re definitely right with this, but I remember reading somewhere that unless it’s a debt, (as you said, taxi fare, restaurant bill), then legal tender can be refused.
This has me wondering why, e.g., I can’t imagine buying a £65, £75, or £80 shirt, pulling up the required amount in legal twenties, tens, and fives, and having the clerk say, “Can’t accept that sir, do you have a Debit or Credit Card?”

 

[Burnsy2023]

businesses can't refuse legal tender for the settlement of a debt like a restaurant meal or taxi fare etc anyway.

Yes they can. All it means is that a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment if he pays into court in legal tender.

 

[Jean-F]

Yes they can. All it means is that a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment if he pays into court in legal tender.

Okay Burnsy, I’m sure you’re right, or else you wouldn’t have posted it, but to me, a reasonably intelligent dinosaur, it sounds like, (so I guess I’m wrong), I go into a restaurant, order Dover sole and a bottle of Viognier, get a bill for £XX, and decline to pay it.
I subsequently go to court, for non payment of victuals provided, and providing I give the court the amount of the bill, that’s the end of the story, I walk free from the court.
How I have I come out ahead, I’ve paid the bill in court, I could have paid it in the restaurant, but instead I’ve wasted half a day or more, just to prove that I didn’t have to pay in the restaurant.

 

[Teh_Next]

So, I'm gonna be travelling back to England for Christmas, and wanted some cash in my pocket for when I arrived.

People told me to "go to the bank and get GBP there instead of a bureau de change because you'll get a better rate" so I did.
And the tools gave me a bunch of 50s.

In my mind this is just as useless as carrying no money because I feel no one will accept it.

Is this just one of those things that you hear and accept as fact?
Do places still regularly refuse 50s? Should I maybe see about changing the 50s for 20s (if I can)
Or is it actually not that bad and there's no fuss?

- Cheers

I wouldn't fancy carrying all that coinage. How many 50p's did you end up with?

 

[Burnsy2023]

Okay Burnsy, I’m sure you’re right, or else you wouldn’t have posted it, but to me, a reasonably intelligent dinosaur, it sounds like, (so I guess I’m wrong), I go into a restaurant, order Dover sole and a bottle of Viognier, get a bill for £XX, and decline to pay it.
I subsequently go to court, for non payment of victuals provided, and providing I give the court the amount of the bill, that’s the end of the story, I walk free from the court.
How I have I come out ahead, I’ve paid the bill in court, I could have paid it in the restaurant, but instead I’ve wasted half a day or more, just to prove that I didn’t have to pay in the restaurant.

My point is that legal tender is a widely known phrase with little relevance in almost all the contexts it's used in. In your example, it's possible that it's irrelevant as legal tender is a civil law issue, and dishonestly going to a restaurant and leaving without payment is a criminal one. If you go to a Magistrates court, offering to pay there would be way too late.

 

[Angilion]

Imagine the 1p bubblies you could by with a fiddy. You’ll be like a gangster in the Spar

You could have bought 20,000 sweets with £50 when I was a boy. The cheapest sweets for 4 for a penny.

Eh, when I were a lad

 

[Energize]

Yes they can. All it means is that a debtor cannot successfully be sued for non-payment if he pays into court in legal tender.

Which basically for all intents and purposes means they can't refuse it. No point in being pedantic.

Any refusal would mean the customer leaving the restaurant without paying and having no hope of recovering the debt.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Which basically for all intents and purposes means they can't refuse it. No point in being pedantic.

Any refusal would mean the customer leaving the restaurant without paying and having no hope of recovering the debt.

There are 2 elements here, a criminal and civil.

If you know a restaurant or a place that don't accept £50 notes ahead of time and purposely go in to eat and intend to do what you say you would do and then walk out.

That is criminal as the crime is not in the act, but the intent.

The civil suit to recover the money will fail but you will be convicted of theft.

 

[Energize]

There are 2 elements here, a criminal and civil.

If you know a restaurant or a place that don't accept £50 notes ahead of time and purposely go in to eat and intend to do what you say you would do and then walk out.

That is criminal as the crime is not in the act, but the intent.

The civil suit to recover the money will fail but you will be convicted of theft.

Without the actus reus of theft there is no crime.

This is a digression however because no one has suggested deliberately going to businesses that don't accept £50 notes.

 

[Raymond Lin]

Without the actus reus of theft there is no crime.

This is a digression however because no one has suggested deliberately going to businesses that don't accept £50 notes.

You've already eaten…in a restaurant it is typical to pay after the meal.

 

[Energize]

You've already eaten…in a restaurant it is typical to pay after the meal.

I somehow doubt that wanting to pay the bill by legal tender is going to satisfy the mes rea of theft when specific protections from legal action are afforded to such methods of payment. Even putting aside the legal theory, it has no practical relevance when there is no material evidence of dishonesty.

 

[Teh_Next]

In essence...
If you walk into an eating place, enjoy your food and then are refused to pay as you only have 50's then you're not in the wrong. The restaurant accepted an unwritten contract, even if you didn't find the food acceptable it's the same, you don't have to pay. Making an attempt to pay, even with 50's makes you look all better.

If you BOOK a table you have less rights, it's assumed you knew what you were getting in to. The matter of payment denominations though... ooft!

 

[Angilion]

I somehow doubt that wanting to pay the bill by legal tender is going to satisfy the mes rea of theft when specific protections from legal action are afforded to such methods of payment. Even putting aside the legal theory, it has no practical relevance when there is no material evidence of dishonesty.

Legal tender is irrelevant unless it's formally a debt. It doesn't apply to payment for food or anything else.

[..] The restaurant accepted an unwritten contract [..]

As did you. The contract would have included the restaurant's payment terms. If it didn't, then businesses that don't accept cash couldn't exist in the UK (and they do).

If you agree to payment terms, accept what you've agreed to pay for on those terms and then refuse to pay on those terms, maybe it could be some form of theft. Proving it would probably be impossible, though.

Is there any legal precedent?

 

[Teh_Next]

Legal tender is irrelevant unless it's formally a debt. It doesn't apply to payment for food or anything else.



As did you. The contract would have included the restaurant's payment terms.

No.
There was no contract.
As did you doesn't cut it. You did not sign an agreement prior to food being served. The restaurant operating as a business has assumptions, by law that the food they serve to customers ad hoc with no formal booking will be to a (ill defined) standard.
That's the whole difference. The restaurant is assumed to be of quality.
IF you prebook that's different, YOU are then assumed to have been knowing, premeditated, what to expect.

 

[Energize]

Legal tender is irrelevant unless it's formally a debt. It doesn't apply to payment for food or anything else.

It is a debt as you've entered into a contract to pay for it. And it's certainly not irrelevant in the context of the criminal offence of making off without payment either because it demonstrates a clear intent to pay using the normal and legally recognised method. The whole reason the concept of legal tender was brought into law was to stop businesses acting unreasonably regarding money being owed to them, eg a restaurant that refuses to accept bank of England issued notes as this would potentially leave a defendant in perpetual debt to them. Even taking this to the most absurd lengths, if a restaurant did someone successfully sue someone for non payment for trying to pay in £50's the courts would have accept the £50 notes as legal tender, so the end result is as I said earlier, restaurants etc can't effectively refuse £50 notes.

 

[Jean-F]

Looking at posts # 87 through # 95, I think I’ll take my younger son’s friend with us
next time we go out to dinner, he’s a solicitor, but maybe a barrister would be better!

 

[Angilion]

No.
There was no contract.
As did you doesn't cut it. You did not sign an agreement prior to food being served. [..]

A signature is not required for a contract to be formed. What is required is for an agreement to be made. A signature (or anything else along those lines) is just a convenient proof that an agreement has been made should such proof become necessary.

If there isn't a contract, the customer would be under no legal obligation to pay anything in any way.

Getting back to the initial point of this thread, I noticed something relevant today. I went into Subways to get a sandwich and prominently displayed on the counter was a notice saying that due to the large number of fake £50 notes in use(*) no £50 notes would be accepted.

I suppose what I should have done was to go back to work, get a £50 note, buy lots of stuff at Subway, offer the £50 and just walk out without paying when they wouldn't accept it. Free stuff and nothing they could do about it as I'd offered legal tender!

Or maybe not. Besides, I'd see it as theft so I wouldn't do it. Also, I wouldn't want to waste any of my lunch break.



* I have no idea if there are a lot of fake 50s around or if that was just an excuse.

 

[Feek]

To reply to the * comment above. Surely forging £50 would be seriously counter productive. They’re the most examined and checked notes in existence and would have to be utterly perfect to be accepted.

 

[Freakbro]

Everything you wanted to know about counterfeit notes but were too afraid to ask..

https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/statistics/banknote

I'm surprised actually how many £50 forged notes there are, in total and %.

Though the £20 has been and still is the most forged note by far, it seems since the £5 and £10 changed to the new plastic variety their forged prevelance has dropped off and £50 has increased, in actual numbers

 

[Feek]

That is interesting and it looks as though the new notes have pretty much killed fake £5 and £10 notes. The sooner we get plastic twenties and fifties, the better.