A friend and I were speculating on this topic.
He supposed that it is illegal because it misrepresents when the check was signed, much as it would be on a notarized document.
I supposed that it is, in fact, legal since the date is not intended to represent the date of the signing, but rather it is to be understood that the date indicates when the check is valid.
Dopers?
Thanks.
Tinker
I would have to say you are correct Tinker. If your friend is correct, then it would also be illegal to pre-date a check which keeps someone from being able to cash it until that date. (That is if the bank is doing their job)
HighSoci I’ve never heard of “pre-dating” a check. I think you’re talking about the same thing that Tinker is. Post-dating a check is when you write the check on the 17th but date it for the 25th, so it can’t be cashed for a week after it is written.
Laws about this sort of thing vary from state to state though I’ve never known of a state where it is legal. I can say with certainty that it is illegal in Pennsylvania, New York and Virginia.
Doesn’t pre- mean before and post- mean after? I thought to post-date something was to write the date as 15 Dec. 02 when it is really 17 Dec 02 so therefore you are posting the date after the said date. I pre-date checks all the time and the bank won’t cash them until the said date, but that is in TX. Don’t know if it is legal or not, but then again… who really stops at a stop sign when no other car is coming or slows down at a yellow light?
In Missouri and/or Kansas, the date on a check is indeed to be the date it was written, and a post-dated check is not a valid document. If there’s a payment problem and it goes to court, the payee is out of luck. The District Attorney will not prosecute for its payment.
So while I don’t believe it’s illegal to write one, the check itself is “not legal” in terms of being something you can successfully sue for.
HighSoci, I’ve never heard of “pre-dating” a check either. Yes, “post” means after, the sense being you’re writing down a date that comes after the day on which you write the check. I’ve heard and read the term “post-dating” for many years and it’s always been clear that it refers to, for example, dating it the 15th when today’s actually the 10th.
I was going to try to clear this up for you, but then I took another look at your post and thought: “HUNNH??”
A check is valid on or after the date it is posted. So if the date is Dec. 17, but some indescribable urge comes to you and you just have to date it Dec. 15 instead, the check is still valid, having “become” valid two days before you wrote it.
Oh goodness, now my brain hurts.
So technically you could “pre-date” a check if you really want to, but it doesn’t create any kind of advantage for you that I can see.
What we are talking about here is POST-dating checks, which would mean that the date is actually Dec. 15, but you date the check for Dec. 17. Thus the check is not valid for two more days.
I used to work as a bank teller. Before I go any further I should tell you that I have absolutely no eye for regulatory detail, so take what I am about to say with a large grain of salt. However, in my recollection post-dated checks were refused not for legal reasons but rather to protect the bank from check kiters. In other words, there was no law against writing post-dated checks, but accepting them could cause major headaches later, and so it was bank policy not to accept them.
Most people who post-date checks do so because they need to pay someone but don’t have the money in their account “just yet.” So instead they write on the check a date at which they know there will money in their account (payday, for example). If the bank honors this and cashes out the check before the written date, they are in effect giving free money to the bearer of the check, since there is no money in the account (yet) to back up the transaction.
I’d like to add, if your bank is automated, the computer system ignores the date.
If you write a date on Dec. 10, but date it Dec. 17, the person you give it to may wait to deposit it. But if they deposit it, the bank will pay it. Because the bank never looks at the date.
If the check bounces, you will have to pay the bounce fees. So be careful doing this.
D’oh! I meant to say:
If you write a check on Dec. 10, but date it Dec. 17, the person you give it to may wait to deposit it. But if they don’t wait, the bank will pay it. Because the bank never looks at the date.
If you mail a check to a large company, like a credit card company, they probably process your check by computer as well. So they never look at the date.
Which is why all of us bank tellers were instructed to ALWAYS check the date on any check that came our way.
by agreement cheques can be post dated as in and installment contract where all documents are signed and verified together with the terms.
also by mutual agreement to avoid refusal to clear
the thing about computers and dates i am not to sure about.
why have a date?
the same restrictions apply to cheques over 6 months old and should not be processed but referred for re authorisation.
I remember something in the fine print when I opened my checking account that said the bank had the right to cash the check when it was presented to them, regardless of the date on the check. Made me realize post-dating checks is not a good idea.
So much misinformation. We had the excat same question just some months ago and the answer was that the date makes no difference. The check is payable on presentation regardless of the date on it. Find that thread and you’ll see all the cites.
A check is legally “the same as cash,” which means that writing a check when you don’t have the cash is not legally acceptable. It’s like a voucher, or a poker chip…can be exchanged for cash the moment it’s presented.
Which isn’t to say that writing a check on Friday, knowing that it won’t hit the bank til Monday, which is payday, isn’t convenient and really handy. It just means that if some freak actually takes your check to your bank on Friday and tries to cash it, and you don’t have the money, you’ve committed fraud. Regardless of what the date on the check says, or what your good intentions were. “Kiting” is illegal because it’s like counterfeiting…creating and spending money you don’t really have.
I do it all the time. g
There’s a good explanation of it at the bottom of the page here.
I’m not an attorney, but worked for many years in a financial institution. The post dating was explained to me like this.
Post dating a check isn’t in itself illegal. If someone gives you a postdated check with the understanding to hold it till the date and it then bounces, you must suit to collect. Under such a circumstance it is not a criminal matter, the check becomes a promissory note.
You can be put in jail for writing a bad check over a certain amount by state law, but failure to pay a debt, ie promissory note, is merely a civil matter.
If there is no understanding about holding the check till the date on it, then the date apparently has no effect.
Two minor points:
What people are calling “pre-dated” checks should be called “stale-dated”. If I give you a check today that’s dated June 24th, it’s stale. But as previously noted, I’m not sure what the point is; it’s still good even though it’s stale.
Post dating checks is not illegal otherwise my company would be in a heap o’ trouble. Every Thursday (sometimes Wednesday) they hand out our checks, which are always dated for Friday.
So according to the one cite here, the UCC code implies that post-dating is legal.
The most relevant paragraph being:
Thank you, AllShookDown. The subsequent paragraph agrees with aahala on the fact that some state consider post-dated checks are promisary notes.
So, we lack any actual cites that post-dating is illegal.
Thanks all,
Tinker
P.S. sailor, I did a search on “post date check”, any date in the GQ forum only and got zero hits. Must have done something wrong, since I just did it and found these hits. I scanned them though and none seemed relevant.
When my daughter was in a private school, the school suggested to parents who didn’t want to pay the whole tuition up front that they provide the school with 10 post-dated checks to be cashed one per month during the year. This solves the problem of people not having enough cash to pay for the whole year at once, and protects the school from people who pull their kids out early and try to duck the full-year tuition obligation they agreed to.
Chava
Check out this thread: http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=133997