Can this check still be honored? [duplicate]
You could talk to them, but (assuming you're in the U.S.), it's highly doubtful any bank would honor a check from 26 years ago.  Most checks in the U.S. are only valid for 180 days, mainly to help companies and banks keep accounting simple. I would suggest talking to your late husband's former employer.  Explain the situation and ask if they'd be willing to research it and perhaps honor his memory and contribution to their company by issuing a new check.  They might do it as a gesture of good will. Are they legally bound to do this?  To my knowledge, the answer is no.  The check was issued and never cashed, which is not all that unusual for companies in business for a long time.  A good example of this would be rebate checks, which (you'd be surprised) quite frequently end up in a drawer and forgotten about.  There has to be some closure for the issuing company in its accounting, else they'd have money in their bank accounts that doesn't properly show in their ledgers. This is an interesting question, though.  I hope others will reply, and perhaps they have a more informed take than me.  I'm going to upvote it simply because I'd like to see this discussion continue. Good luck!
"I would contact the security/fraud departments at your bank and see if you can get in contact (via your bank) with the bank that the check is drawn on. By my reading of your question, it sounds like the person you are dealing with fraudulently endorsed a third party check, which you subsequently endorsed for deposit. Explain this situation to your bank. As far as the other person goes, tell her ""I'm in contact with the frauds department at my bank, as the validity of the check is in question, and I'm not giving you a cent until the matter is resolved."" Depositing a bad check is a misdemeanor in most jurisdictions, so it's essential to bring this to the attention of the bank and authorities asap." Have the check reissued to the proper payee. "(This answer is based on the US banking system; if that isn't where you are, please edit appropriately.) There are probably two places the thief could go to cash the check: Your bank The issuer's bank Third-party banks are unlikely to want to cash a check drawn on a different bank for a payee who isn't their customer.  So notifying both of these banks would be a good start. Also, hopefully the thief does not look like you and won't be able to pass using your ID.  The thief will also have to forge your endorsement on the check - if he goes to your bank, they can check it against your signature which they have on file, and hopefully it won't match.  (The issuer's bank wouldn't notice that, of course, so read on.) Even if the check is cashed, you should ultimately be okay, as I understand it.  The issuer of the check still owes you the money; he can't prove he's paid you until he has the cancelled check (or its image) showing your valid endorsement.  So he needs to give you another check, eventually.  (This assumes the check was payment for a debt of some kind; if it was a gift or some other sort of voluntary payment, he could at this point change his mind and decide not to pay you after all.) The issuer should be okay too.  If the check is cashed and debited from his account, he should go to his bank and tell them the endorsement is forged.  They may ask you to sign something where you state under penalty of perjury that the signature isn't yours.  Then they will re-credit his account, so that he can pay you again. (Normally the bank  that cashed the check will be on the hook for the loss; it was their responsibility to make sure they were paying the rightful payee, and they failed in that responsibility.  Various procedural issues can shift that liability between banks, but ultimately it shouldn't be either customer who suffers unless someone did something really negligent, like not reporting the theft for months.) Obviously this would all be much simpler if the issuer can call his bank right away and stop payment.  This can be done over the phone or online, so ""out of town"" shouldn't be an issue unless he is out in the woods or something.  If he can talk to you, he can talk to them." "A check is simply an order to the bank to pay money to someone. The payor's signature on the front of the check is all that's needed to make that order binding. If you read the check carefully, you'll see that it says ""Pay to the order of ...""; that's the payor's instruction to the bank, and as payee you can make a further order, to pay the money to someone else, in which case you'd have to endorse the check to make your order binding. But nobody does that any more; instead, people always just deposit checks into their accounts. When you deposit a check, the payor's signature is all that's needed to tell the payor's bank that it should pay the money. If your bank insists on a signature as well, that's just to pretend that they're paying attention in case it turns out that you stole the check. In reality, banks don't pay attention to signatures, nor to the name of the payee. I once put the wrong check into an envelope, and the phone company got a check for something over $700 on a bill of less than $50, payable to some completely different company; they deposited it and gave me a credit for the balance; none of the banks in the transition chain questioned it." Not really. A bank will honor a million dollar check if there are funds there to let it clear. The bottom line is something in your story is not adding up.   You had two checks one that is voided, and one that is not.  Lets say they are both written against your account for $100.  Lets also assume that have exactly $100 in your account. You give the Liquor Store the voided one, they give you $100, but when they attempt to cash the check at their bank they are denied and assessed a $20 fee.  You spend the $100 they gave you; however, you still should have $100 in your account as the check was not cashed. You want to make things right with the liquor store.  You should be able to withdraw the $100 you still have in the bank and give them that much.  While they will still be out the $20 fee, that should make them feel much better about you as a customer.  Tell them when you will be paid and that you will give them the $20 on that date.  Then do so. The only way this problem is not solvable is that you spent the $100 that was left in the bank.  In that case, the Liquor store is correct you stole the money.  More accurately you spent money that wasn't yours. I have seen this happen with IRS checks, the bank told me that the IRS imposes the requirement.  Otherwise, though, I have frequently deposited checks made out to my wife into a joint checking account without her signature, they have never cared one bit. In the UK the official rule is that a cheque is valid for 3 years from the date it was wrote. However after 3 months some banks can choose to turn them down. I had a cheque once that was a year old which is when I looked it up to see whether it was stil valid, and I found the laws regarding it then.  I was actually quite surprised it was 3 years! Btw if it does bounce your quite entitled to ask your employer for a replacement cheque.  They owe it you and it's just sat in their account assigned to you anyway. The typical rule in the US is 180 days, but some banks do it differently. However, even if the check is dead, you should be able to call the payroll department for your old job. They can stop payment on the old check and issue you another one. "Generally cashiers checks do not expire, since they are ""like cash"" and fully funded at the time of issue. However, whether they can be cashed after a long period of time (and also what the definition of ""long"" is) depends on the bank. Eventually, if left uncashed it probably would be escheated to the state to wait for someone to claim it. Being that it's been less than a year I expect it could be cashed by the payee written on the check without any issues. If the payee is deceased then the check can be cashed by the estate, as it should be considered the property of the estate the same way it would be if it had already been cashed and was now sitting in a bank account in your mother's name. Under normal circumstances the ""estate"" in this case would go to your mother's spouse first, then to you (and your siblings if you have any), unless there is a will specifying otherwise. The only way your aunt would be able to deposit the check on her own is if she was listed as an ""OR"" on the check, or if she is the executor of OP's mother's estate. It sounds like the second line of the check is indeed referring to your aunt, however, from your description of the check it sounds like the second line is simply a designation of what the check is for rather than an additional payee. I bet a probate attorney in your state could easily tell by simply looking at the check." No, most check deposits are processed that way. Banks transmit the pictures of the checks between themselves, and allow business customers to deposit scans for quite some time now. I see no reason for you to be concerned of a check being in a dusty drawer, it's been deposited, cannot be deposited again. If you're concerned of forgery - well, nothing new there. You'd have to consult a lawyer in the state that the transaction took place to get a definitive answer.  And also provide the details of the contract or settlement agreement. That said, if you clearly presented the check as payment (verbally or otherwise) and they accepted and cashed the check, and it cleared, you should have good legal standing to force them to finalize the payment.   While they had every right to refuse the payment, and also every right to place a hold on the credit until the transaction cleared their bank, they don't have the right to simply claim the payment as a gift just because it came in a different form than they specified in the contract.  Obviously this is a lesson learned on reading the fine print though.  And, to be frank, it sounds like someone wants to make life difficult for you for whatever reason. And if that is the case I would refer back to my initial comment about contacting a lawyer in that state. "I believe the banks are protecting themselves when they ""require"" your endorsement. Years ago. they used to ask for your endorsement, and not require it. If you endorse the check, it legally authorizes them to debit your account, if the check is later returned for non-sufficient funds (NSF). It mostly protects the bank, and not the customer." "Let me just add that while you don't need to write the date received on the back of the check, you could. Why? Let's say someone was late in paying you and you wanted to document the fact that they were late. I've had late-paying customers send me a check dated on the due date but really they just pre-dated the check and sent it 60 days past-due. So let's say I want to establish and document the pattern in case it becomes a future legal issue. When you deposit or cash a check, an image of the front and back is made and the person or company who issued the check will have those images stored as part of their transaction history. (It used to be that the original, physical, cancelled check was returned to the payer, but that was another era.) So write the date received on the back next to the endorsement, endorse the check, and take a photo of the front and back (along with the postmark on the envelope) to document that they are a late payer. This way, if it ever becomes a ""he said she said"" issue you can easily show they have a history of paying late. If the payer looks at their check images they'll see your received date note next to the endorsement. Granted, this is a lot of trouble for a unique situation. In 20+ years of running a business I've actually had the foresight to do this a handful of times with habitual offenders, and in (only) one case did it come in handy later on. But boy was I glad to have those photos when I needed them." Have you tried contacting them via phone or e-mail to follow up?  If not, definitely do that first.   If no response, you can keep this simple: Close your old account, write a personal check from your new one, and send the check with an explanatory note via Certified Mail.  That will get you proof that it was delivered successfully (or not).  Leave the money in your account for 180 days.  Your check should be void after that and cannot be cashed (check with your bank on this) and if it's still unclaimed they will need to contact you to request payment.