Cheques not cashed for years.?

Roddy Starr

Roddy Starr

Roddy Starr

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27 Aug 2020
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My husband David died last December and i have uncovered a heap of cheques which have never been cashed,some are in my name surprisingly,and some 20 years old.
David was a hoarder and going through his office is going to take at least 2 years,some cheques are for small amounts and some are for hundreds of pounds.
Does anyone know if i can do anything ?
Thank you.
 
A cheque is valid for as long as the debt between the two parties (i.e. the person writing the cheque and the person they give it to) exists. In other words, cheques don’t have an expiry date. However, it is common banking practice to reject cheques that are over six months old to protect the person who has written the cheque, in case the payment has been made another way or the cheque has been lost or stolen. This six-month timeframe is at the discretion of individual banks. It should not be assumed that cheques older than six months would automatically be rejected as the only definite way to cancel a cheque is for the person who wrote it to request that a stop be placed on it. If you have a cheque that you want to pay in that is more than six months old, your best course of action is to not pay it in and instead obtain a replacement from the person who gave it to you. Where there is a dispute, a cheque remains legally valid in order to provide proof of the existence of a debt for a period of six years, which is the Statute of Limitations.
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From https://www.chequeandcredit.co.uk/i...r words, cheques don,has been lost or stolen.
 
Sounds like my Grandfather. In his case he used to hide money round the house. Clearly some of it he forgot about over time. After his death and we were clearing his house we found hundreds of pounds, mainly £20 notes under the carpets. We did find some old white five pound notes he had stashed away decades ago when they were still legal tender. These would have been a substantial amount of money when he hid them but today they were just still worth £5. We had to get them swapped at the Bank of England.
 
My bank allows your to pay in cheques via their mobile app, which means despite being "cashed" you still have the original copy of the cheque in your hands.
 
Roddy Starr said:
My husband David died last December and i have uncovered a heap of cheques which have never been cashed,some are in my name surprisingly,and some 20 years old.
David was a hoarder and going through his office is going to take at least 2 years,some cheques are for small amounts and some are for hundreds of pounds.
Does anyone know if i can do anything ?
Thank you.
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I don't understand why anyone especially when it comes to money wouldn't have a special pile or folder that was urgent and therefore kept seperate and actively processed on a regular basis.

It's likely that have been cashed if they haven't then its truly mind boggling and you would have no course of further action especially if they are up to 20 years old. You might on some which are more modern cases.

Rather than post on here why don't you take them to the bank?
 
Psycho Sonny said:
I don't understand why anyone especially when it comes to money wouldn't have a special pile or folder that was urgent and therefore kept seperate and actively processed on a regular basis.

It's likely that have been cashed if they haven't then its truly mind boggling and you would have no course of further action especially if they are up to 20 years old. You might on some which are more modern cases.

Rather than post on here why don't you take them to the bank?
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As stated in my grandfathers case, some people are funny with money and cheques. Especially older people. Hell only last month my boss who has just moved house found an uncashed HMRC tax refund for £14k from 7 years and asked me to find out if he was still owed the refund!

And he owns and runs a £25m turnover business!!!!
 
Greebo said:
As stated in my grandfathers case, some people are funny with money and cheques. Especially older people. Hell only last month my boss who has just moved house found an uncashed HMRC tax refund for £14k from 7 years and asked me to find out if he was still owed the refund!

And he owns and runs a £25m turnover business!!!!
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Cash is different to cheques. Plenty of people keep some tucked away. Especially cash in hand workers.

Cheques should not be accepted and where they are they should be cashed at least once per week.
 
Psycho Sonny said:
Cash is different to cheques. Plenty of people keep some tucked away. Especially cash in hand workers.

Cheques should not be accepted and where they are they should be cashed at least once per week.
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Agreed but forgetting you have stashed money away 50 years ago which was a lot when stashed but hardly anything now is fairly inexcusable.

Plus you never passed comment on my bosses £14k uncashed cheque for 7 years ago. Some older people tend not to be organised with cash or cheques.

And what is all this "cheques should not be accepted" ****? until recent years there were loads of cheques being passed around between individuals. I used to go through several cheque books per year.
 
My GF's older relatives are really bad for hiding money. Her great uncle who we all know is bad for this (starting to get better though), was throwing out a desk. We told him to check for money before he does get rid of it and he insisted he had checked and there was definitely no money. Before it was taken away we did go check.................... there was £2000 in cash in there!!! :p
 
MikeTheNative said:
My GF's older relatives are really bad for hiding money. Her great uncle who we all know is bad for this (starting to get better though), was throwing out a desk. We told him to check for money before he does get rid of it and he insisted he had checked and there was definitely no money. Before it was taken away we did go check.................... there was £2000 in cash in there!!! :p
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did you keep it :D
 
Greebo said:
Agreed but forgetting you have stashed money away 50 years ago which was a lot when stashed but hardly anything now is fairly inexcusable.

Plus you never passed comment on my bosses £14k uncashed cheque for 7 years ago. Some older people tend not to be organised with cash or cheques.

And what is all this "cheques should not be accepted" ****? until recent years there were loads of cheques being passed around between individuals. I used to go through several cheque books per year.
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£14k obviously your boss earns too much to forget a cheque of that size just lying around. I'd like to think I'd go out of my way to bank it within 2-3 days if not immediately.

As for cheques not being accepted its a terrible inefficient system. You have plenty of better options like bank transfer, cash, PayPal, etc. Using cheques today is like using morse code. Most places refuse them.
 
Plenty of big businesses still send you a cheque if they need to refund over payments and things like that, they may be **** but they're still in use because it's the way it's done and until they're completely phased out there's no push for those businesses to spend the money changing.
 
tom_e said:
Plenty of big businesses still send you a cheque if they need to refund over payments and things like that, they may be **** but they're still in use because it's the way it's done and until they're completely phased out there's no push for those businesses to spend the money changing.
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They likley still use them because they know a percentage won't be bothered to cash them. So they win. I got one for £3 and never bothered because it would cost me £15 in petrol to cash it in.
 
The cynic in me is convinced that cheques are still used in a lot of situations because the issuer knows there's a chance it won't be cashed!
 
Hate the things personally - I've only done one in the last ~20 years myself. Got 2-3 people who persist with them - at least these days I can just use the bank's app to photograph them in and then forget about them.
 
People and systems are slow to change.

When people used cheques there is no online banking etc.

Also, google wants me to change the word cheques to squelches, and cheque, to quench.

I assume that this is because nobody even types quench cheque anymore.
 
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