So I just moved into this place a few weeks ago. I paid a giant deposit and my first month’s rent. Then I decided to also give them a post-dated check for next month’s rent while I was at it (makes sense, since I might go visit family for a few days over the holidays). I called my landlord and was told that would be fine, they’d hold it…
Of course what they actually did was cash the check (the one dated December 1, the one with “RENT DEC ‘06″ printed in capitalized letters on the front, the one with an accompanying note saying what it was for…). This got me into a world of pain earlier on today that I’m sorting out at the moment. But I learned two important things today:
- I won’t be issuing any post-dated checks like that again. Not to those guys. If I’m travelling, I’ll have to FedEx or otherwise provide a check (since electronic payment hasn’t entered the game over here yet – mind you, it hasn’t really for rent in the UK either). I can’t believe it has to be like that. This is a trivially simple thing, not a patch to rtld.c.
- The bank will happily cash checks with a future date. This is really very worrying and we’re going to be having a little chat in the morning about that. A long chat in which I’ll make my dissatisfaction abundantly clear to them in language I hope that they’ll understand. I’m not even sure cashing that was remotely legal – would they also not bother to read the date clearly written on the front if it were signed “Donald Duck”?
I haven’t been this pissed off with a private company in a while (and I don’t mean the bank – I always expect them to want to screw you over). I love this apartment, really I do, it’s just a shame it can’t be as simple as “I want this apartment, here’s a direct debit mandate, let me pay you automatically”. One thing Europe does do better (I wrote about one cheque in the last year).
At least the Republicans are having a worse day 
Jon.
HSBC and I believe many other UK banks have cleared post dated cheques in advance of the date issued for years.
As far as I’m aware it’s perfectly OK for banks to cash future-marked cheques. I’d check your terms and conditions before you go to have a chat about it.