I have been named Commissioner of our fantasty football league, which I loathe. I wish my friends would give it up already. I feel committed to stay in the league because we have been doing it for 14 years, and we have trophy that we’ve been adding layers to each year.
Anyway, we have 12 owners, and last years commish was supposed to collect the $ and pay any winners.
This week he hands over the funds (which we must disperse to last years winners this week at the draft). Well, I got a bunch of crinkled up money and some checks. The checks were written as far back as 11 months and the owners are no longer in the league.
example:
One is six months old.
One is nine months old.
One is a year old.
Can I cash them? None of them say 'void after x days". We need the dough to pay the winners.
Take 'em to the bank, shouldn’t be a problem. The only way I would forsee a problem is if they said “Void after 90 days, 1 year…” Other then that the only way they would bounce is if the check writer doesn’t keep track of their checks and forgot about it, or assumed it wasn’t going to be cashed and doesn’t have the money in the account anymore.
I thought it was “cheques” in England. Anyway, checks are valid for a reasonable time after issuance unless you have laws stating a specific time. What is a reasonable time appears to be a matter that the bank would have to make. No harm in trying to cash them. The worst that could happen is that the bank’s employees would have a good laugh.
Assuming that these are checks drawn on U.S. banks, any of them more than 6 months old are stale. Uniform Commercial Code, Section 4-404. That means that the drawee bank is under no obligation to pay it.
Go ahead and try anyway. There’s a decent chance that the checks will go through, assuming that the account is still open and has sufficient funds. There’s no law in any state that I’m aware of that would prohibit you from doing so.