Revenue cheque

robertj3003

Im after receiving a cheque from the revenue whos account is bank of ireland college green. Im after closing my AIB bank account and am waiting on details of my new one from Ulster bank so ive no account to lodge this to and would like the funds before xmas.

Question is can I cash this in the branch?

Toots

No. Revenue cheques are crossed and so can only be lodged to an account, unfortunately.

Kristopherus

Toots* wrote: »

No. Revenue cheques are crossed and so can only be lodged to an account, unfortunately.

+1.

But they are lovely to look at.:) They are usually crossed "A/C Payee Only". So must be lodged first. Photocopy it, though. You won't be getting one of them every day:).

P. Breathnach

Toots* wrote: »

No. Revenue cheques are crossed and so can only be lodged to an account, unfortunately.

Note that it has to be lodged to an account. You can endorse it and have somebody else lodge it (perhaps a family member or a friend) who will give you cash for it.

You could even spend it by endorsing it and paying it over in a business.

Toots

I could be wrong on this but I think revenue cheques are crossed account payee only. If this is the case then they can only go into the account of the payee. I'm not 100% if they are or if they're just crossed account payee. If the word only isn't there then you can endorse it over if you want.

P. Breathnach

Toots* wrote: »

I could be wrong on this but I think revenue cheques are crossed account payee only. If this is the case then they can only go into the account of the payee. I'm not 100% if they are or if they're just crossed account payee. If the word only isn't there then you can endorse it over if you want.

Even if it is "a/c payee only" title can be passed by endorsement and delivery: that is a general crossing rather than a special crossing.

Toots

P. Breathnach wrote: »

Even if it is "a/c payee only" title can be passed by endorsement and delivery: that is a general crossing rather than a special crossing.

I got this from the IPSO website:

Must a cheque be lodged to the named payee on the cheque?
In some circumstances cheques may be endorsed over to a 3rd party by the named payee. However, in many cases cheques are crossed (e.g. not negotiable, account payee only, & Co.) and these should not be lodged to 3rd party accounts.

However what we were always told in work was that "account payee only" were the only ones we couldn't lodge to a 3rd party with an endorsement. Everything else was supposed to be ok?

P. Breathnach

Toots* wrote: »

I got this from the IPSO website:...

That reads to me like practical advice rather than legal guidance.

However what we were always told in work was that "account payee only" were the only ones we couldn't lodge to a 3rd party with an endorsement. Everything else was supposed to be ok?

I am not aware that the law has changed since I studied it some (quite a few!) years ago. Title to a cheque crossed "a/c payee only" can be transferred. There is a risk that it might not be a negotiable instrument in the same way that an uncrossed cheque is, so a person accepting it should be careful to ensure that the person tendering it has proper title to the cheque.

I know that many businesses are cautious about accepting third-party cheques, and especially cautious about cheques with any form of crossing. That is why I suggested using a family member or friend, and mentioned the possibility of paying it over to a business pretty much as an afterthought.

Toots

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That reads to me like practical advice rather than legal guidance.

That's what I figured, it's a pity it doesn't say on the site whether it is or isn't. Although I've never found the IPSO website to be exactly a mine of information.

I am not aware that the law has changed since I studied it some (quite a few!) years ago. Title to a cheque crossed "a/c payee only" can be transferred. There is a risk that it might not be a negotiable instrument in the same way that an uncrossed cheque is, so a person accepting it should be careful to ensure that the person tendering it has proper title to the cheque.

It could well still be law, I don't know, I'm only going by the laminate chart thing we have in work, but I reckon that's just applicable to my bank, others probably differ. The only thing I know of is that a lot of banks do have a policy is that if it's crossed account payee only they won't accept it for lodgement to a 3rd party account (probably for the reasons you mentioned above) I'd say if I had a Euro for every time a customer has come to me with that problem....

I suppose the issue for the OP, should they go down the endorsement route, would be trying to find a bank branch to accept the cheque. Really it'd just make life a lot easier for everyone if there were only two crossings for cheques, one that means title can be transferred, and another that means it can't.

P. Breathnach

Toots* wrote: »

... Really it'd just make life a lot easier for everyone if there were only two crossings for cheques, one that means title can be transferred, and another that means it can't.

There are just two classes of crossing: general and special. In summary, a crossing is general unless it a banker is named in the crossing. All cheques that are generally crossed can be transferred.

The problem is not the crossing, but the question of negotiability. A person who accepts a cheque in good faith can acquire full title to it even if the person who passed it to them had not such title. That makes cheques different from most other forms of asset -- if you buy a stolen car in good faith, you do not acquire any title to it.

Some forms of crossing make a cheque non-negotiable. That means that it can still be transferred, but if there is a flaw in the title along the way, the person accepting it can lose out. This results in some institutions being very cautious -- excessively so, in my opinion, but that might be due to their not bothering with training their staff sufficiently.

Suppose I was the payee of a crossed cheque classed as non-negotiable and had no bank account. I could go into a bank, armed sufficient identification, and should be able to lodge it to any account -- the friend or family member I suggested in my earlier post.

Anomic

Revenue cheques are crossed non negotiable- ac payee only. Cannot be endorsed & lodged to someone else account.

P. Breathnach

Anomic wrote: »

Revenue cheques are crossed non negotiable- ac payee only. Cannot be endorsed & lodged to someone else account.

That's not what non-negotiable means.

kaiser sauze

Crossed A/C Payee only cannot be transferred and must be lodged to an account in the payees name.

No exceptions.

P. Breathnach

The law on crossing cheques is set out in the Bills of Exchange Act, 1882, SS 76-82. I cannot easily find the full relevant text online (I don't need it for myself, as I have it on paper). The Act does not restrict the transferability of cheques that are crossed "account payee only".

In the UK the law was amended in the Cheques Act 1992 to make cheques crossed in that manner non-transferable. I have searched the Irish Statute Book [you can do it here: http://www.irishstatutebook.ie/searchall.html] and it seems that we did not follow the UK.

Where Irish banks treat a cheque crossed "account payee only" as non-transferable (and yes, I know that they often do that) it seems that they are applying UK law even though we have not enacted a similar provision.

Perhaps somebody might be able to show me something that I have missed.

sarahlulu

My understanding has always been that account payee only is an instruction given by the person writing the cheque that it must be lodged to the account of the payee. Perhaps I have had it wrong?

kaiser sauze

sarahlulu wrote: »

My understanding has always been that account payee only is an instruction given by the person writing the cheque that it must be lodged to the account of the payee. Perhaps I have had it wrong?

No, you have not.

P. Breathnach

sarahlulu wrote: »

My understanding has always been that account payee only is an instruction given by the person writing the cheque that it must be lodged to the account of the payee. Perhaps I have had it wrong?

That may be the intent of the drawer but, as my trusty Sheldon on The Practice and Law of Banking puts it

Such expressions have no statutory significance

As I said earlier, the verbal formulation was recognised and given force in the UK by the Cheques Act, 1992, but I am not aware of any Irish legislation that has the same effect.

If anybody thinks I am wrong in this, I would prefer a citation to an unsupported assertion.

kaiser sauze

P. Breathnach wrote: »

That may be the intent of the drawer but, as my trusty Sheldon on The Practice and Law of Banking puts it


As I said earlier, the verbal formulation was recognised and given force in the UK by the Cheques Act, 1992, but I am not aware of any Irish legislation that has the same effect.

If anybody thinks I am wrong in this, I would prefer a citation to an unsupported assertion.

To be honest, I could care less what you, Sheldon or anyone else says and stating that we need to cite a statute to back up what we say is just being arrogant.

People who handle these matters on a day-to-day basis have stated how these cheques are dealt with. I know how they are dealt with.

Is this good enough?

Account Payee Only" -requires that the cheque should be lodged to an account in the name of the payee

Are you done misinforming people yet?

P. Breathnach

kaiser sauze wrote: »

To be honest, I could care less what you, Sheldon or anyone else says and stating that we need to cite a statute to back up what we say is just being arrogant.

Arrogant? How about considering that I am interested?

People who handle these matters on a day-to-day basis have stated how these cheques are dealt with. I know how they are dealt with.

I also know. I am interested in the legal basis of bank practice because I think that there isn't one. I asked, in an earlier post, if anybody could show me something that I had missed.

Is this good enough?

Thank you for that. It's interesting, because the only specifically Irish legislation referred to is the Cheques Act, 1959, which says nothing about "a/c payee" crossings, and the 1882 Act certainly gives no statutory basis for interpreting them narrowly. It looks to me that Irish banks are simply following the practice of UK banks (which does have a statutory underpinning) but do not have a legal basis for doing so.

Are you done misinforming people yet?

And you suggest that I am arrogant?

Thoie

robertj3003 wrote: »

Im after receiving a cheque from the revenue whos account is bank of ireland college green. Im after closing my AIB bank account and am waiting on details of my new one from Ulster bank so ive no account to lodge this to and would like the funds before xmas.

Question is can I cash this in the branch?

If you're waiting on details of a new account from Ulster Bank, it sounds like you've already started the process of setting one up, and there's probably some record of you in the system. Can you get to the UB branch where you've done the paperwork, explain the situation to them and see what they can do? Bring passport and a utility bill (see here). There's also a phone number there you can ring them from - they may be able to give you an account number over the phone (though they mightn't). Anyway, if travel is easy, bring every piece of paper you can think of and head in to them. Don't forget the cheque itself!