Timeline for Rent cheque was stolen from landlord - am I obligated to pay again?
Current License: CC BY-SA 4.0
11 events
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| May 23, 2018 at 18:24 | comment | added | cHao | @Jay: I'm not saying "for some purposes you've paid..." anything. If a payment requires both parts, then you haven't paid me until money has flowed from you to me. Whether you "pay" with counterfeit bills, fake gold, a bad check, or even a good check, you haven't paid yet. It's not a completed payment until the check has been accepted and cashed. The thing with late fees is, you can't control when i cash your check, and i got the check in plenty of time. Although you haven't paid yet, the delay in completing the payment is mine and not yours, so i don't get to penalize you. | |
| May 23, 2018 at 16:56 | comment | added | Jay | @cHao IANAL. Note you're really saying, "for some purposes you've paid when the check is cashed, and for other purposes you've paid when you hand them the check". That might be true, but at this point we're just saying my intuition of how it should work versus yours. Yes, if a check bounces, then it wasn't a valid payment, and you don't know that until you take it to the bank. But if cash is counterfeit it's not a valid payment either. If you agree to pay in gold but the chunk of metal you hand over isn't really gold it's not a valid payment. Etc. | |
| May 23, 2018 at 14:58 | comment | added | cHao | @Jay: Checks aren't legal tender, so logically, providing a check isn't actually paying at all. If we accept a check, things aren't fair for both sides until we view cash-equivalent payments as two actions: the provision of something that can be exchanged for cash (by the payer), and the actual successful exchange (by the payee). So you can initiate payment by putting a valid check in my hand, but it's not complete until i receive cash. Late fees go by when the payment was initiated, because that's the only date you can reasonably control. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 19:33 | comment | added | Jay | @nij I don't think it's that simple. What if the landlord doesn't tell the tenant that the check was stolen until after the thief cashes it? Does the tenant still take the loss? How was he supposed to know it was stolen? What if the landlord tells the tenant it was stolen 10 minutes before the thief cashes it? Was it the tenant's responsibility to call the bank within that ten minutes? How much notice does the landlord have to give before it becomes the tenant's problem? | |
| May 21, 2018 at 19:29 | comment | added | Jay | Logically -- and I realize that "logic" and "the law" are not necessarily the same thing -- but logically, I think that a debt must be considered to be paid when you give the person the check (assuming the check is good). If it's not legally paid until the recipient cashes the check, then, for example, you could give someone a check a week before the due date, he could decide to not cash it for 8 days, and then charge you a late fee. Or, as here, he could lose the check or get robbed, and even though the payer had no control over this, it becomes his responsibility. | |
| May 21, 2018 at 1:29 | comment | added | Nij | Well sure, if you go and add complications and changes, it does get complicated and changes. What does that have to do with the situation where the check is deliberately not stopped by the tenant, or had no reason to delay the stop? | |
| May 20, 2018 at 21:08 | comment | added | Ben Voigt | @Nij: It's unlikely to be so cut and dried. Did the landlord offer to pay the fee for placing a stop payment order? Did the landlord suggest a stop payment order without saying anything about the fee, the tenant asked for the landlord to cover the fee, the landlord agreed but the check was cashed in the interim between the tenant receiving the first instruction (to stop payment) and receiving the offer to pay the costs? What if the tenant asked to see a police report concerning the theft (because he suspects the landlord still has the check and is trying to get paid twice)? | |
| May 20, 2018 at 0:33 | comment | added | Nij | That would be entirely between the tenant and their bank. It's already very clear that the landlord's only problem is that they haven't received the rent - they're not interested in the theft except to the extent that it causes their problem. Most banks would argue with the account holder (i.e. the tenant) over their responsibility to have warned the bank and would probably respond with "that was silly of you, sorry and tough luck". Though they would support any official investigation to the extent required by providing records which may identify the thief/an associate. @Jay | |
| May 19, 2018 at 23:12 | comment | added | Jay | I should add: Since you stopped the check, then you have not paid. If the landlord hadn't been robbed, and before he could cash your check you stopped it, surely no one would say that you have fulfilled your obligation to pay! I'm not sure what the legalities would be if you had refused to stop the check and the thief had managed to cash it, or if you delayed for no good reason. | |
| May 19, 2018 at 13:50 | comment | added | Ant | +1 for the last paragraph. If the check has been cashed, it would be an entire different issue. Since you stopped it, then of course you should pay | |
| May 18, 2018 at 20:18 | history | answered | Jay | CC BY-SA 4.0 |