No, the Landlord gets the advantage of the check in his hands on time, rather than the vagracies of the Mail.
Getting a check to your landlord on time isn’t do him a favor your are meeting the requirements of another contract.
Ok, let’s get rid of the contract law issues right now.
The holding of the check until the written date could easily be a contract. OP offers to write a check with a post-date, and turn it in on the 1st. In return, he asks that the landlord not cash the check until the post-date. Landlord agrees to do so. We have offer, we have acceptance, and we certainly have consideration: each party is agreeing to do something he is not obligated to do otherwise. Bingo, contract.
The trouble here is that there does not appear to be a contract because we appear to be missing not consideration, but rather offer and acceptance. Without some discussion between the OP and the landlord, the fact that they engaged in a practice prior to the month in question isn’t enough to establish an offer and acceptance of that offer.
Regardless of the law, the damages here are petty enough that you’d have to be either very spiteful or very poor to consider involving the courts to mediate this dispute.
I was suggesting that the OP [when I thought he DID have an agreement with the landlord, a mistake on my part] ask the landlord to make him whole.
I was hoping that the OP’s landlord, being an honorable man with concern for the happiness of his tenants and his reputation in the community, would follow through with the promise he made to his tenant.
Now, if the bank doesn’t play nice, we could still hold out hope that the landlord feels bound by the date on the check as a matter of courtesy [or ignorance of the law], despite the fact that under the Uniform Commercial Code our OP is more sunken than the Titanic.
Given all we know, and assuming the OP hasn’t had a discussion with his landlord we don’t know about…
I would ask the bank for forgiveness, failing that I’d just swallow the bank fees.
My landlord’s favor is worth more to me that the largest NSF fee I’ve ever heard of.
I agree with this. My first reaction was why are you still using a cheque to pay for a regular expense like your rent? Just get it set up as direct debit from your account on whatever day of the month is appropriate.
Wait a minute. The rent isn’t due until the fifth. So if I am going to be out of town the 1st through the eighth and I drop my rent check in the landlord’s little drop-slot as I leave on the first, having dated it for the day the rent is due, the fifth, so that I’m a good tenant and aren’t late paying. You’re saying that he can legally go cash it on the first and the bank teller won’t notice and say, “gee, this isn’t dated until the fifth, come back and see us then?” Or if he just makes a drop-box deposit or ATM deposit of the check, the bank won’t accept responsibility when the image of the check they send me shows that it was deposited before the date? Many’s the time my mom has left a bunch of pre-dated checks around for me to mail out or hand out when she’s been out of town…if she didn’t have someone to do her bill-paying and she gave the church treasurer her pledge check ahead of time, they wouldn’t be legally responsible for holding it until the date? It’s been many, many years since I was a bank teller, but I do remember that we had to check dates on checks carefully.
I can understand pre-dating a check used to pay for something at a store being fraudulent, but I can’t see how it would be so in this situation…the rent wasn’t due yet, the landlord shouldn’t have cashed/deposited the check until the due date at the earliest.
Of course, if the rent is really due on the 1st, but not considered late until after the fifth, then the landlord should be able to deposit it anytime after the 1st if you give it to him before the fifth.
It is, if the Landlord in effect won’t allow you to pay early (as he’ll deposit the check, thus getting his cash earlier, which is a large benefit, and might cost you BIG BUX) or late, you are saying that the tenant must be EXACTLY on time every damn month, never a day late or early. That’s complete nonsense.
Just for historical perspective up until this 1990 (approximately) revision of the UCC, it was perfectly proper to issue a post dated check and it was the drawee banks responsibility to bounce it if the date had not yet arrived. So the OP would have just gone to his bank and said - you made a mistake - fix it. This section was changed with many others to place the onus on the maker of the check instead of the bank.
I worked in the banking industry back office from 1970 to 1990 and refunded many NSF fees that were caused by paying post dated checks prematurely.
But with modern technology, this isn’t an issue. I set up my bills to pay in my absence. I can be gone for a month and my finances will just rock along fine without me. I have all of February’s payments set up to pay throughout the month. My mortgage payment will arrive exactly on March 1, not a day late or early. The last time my mortgage was late was during the Anthrax scare of 2001. I sent a payment through the mail and it never arrived at its destination. Ever since, my payments have arrived exactly on time and it doesn’t even cost me a postage stamp.
I realize that this may not be possible for everyone. I am fortunate in that I have a very predictible paycheck which is direct deposited exactly on the correct date. Some people with less money, or less predictible pay, may not find it so easy. However, if I were going out of town when the rent is due, I would figure something out. Maybe mail the rent check from wherever I was travelling, for example.
That can work for some, but I doubt most Landlords (that aren’t a large corp) will be set up to do that. And, there are security issues.
I agree that it may not work for everyone, but it will work for most. Landlords don’t have to be set up for anything. It’s not an electronic transfer (though that happens). I can set up a payment and the bank (actually, it’s contractor) prints a check and sends it to the person or company that I direct. As far as security goes, it is more secure then giving a check to the landlord. The internet banking is a secure, encrypted transaction. Yes, some people have had bad experiences, but given the enormous number of transactions which take place each day, the chance of a security breach is remote. In the case of an actual check being printed, it bears the account numbers of the contractor, not my account number. The landlord and/or his employees never have access to my real bank account information.
As an interesting aside, the Banking Ombudsman in the UK has investigated the charging of Denied Payment fees by UK banks. The law says that the banks can charge their costs, no more. But the banks will not reveal the details of those costs, or the justification.
So anyone with a bank account in the UK can challenge their bank over these fees, going back six years. If the bank does not justify the level of fees, then you can issue a small claims court proceeding against them. At this point they will make a settlement offer.
Money (back) in the bank.
Si
And they’ll also send you a letter saying that they have closed your account
- that can be a nuisance
I could be wrong, but heard that postdating a check is illegal, actually fraud.
You’re wrong.