bank wont lodge a cheque without two signatures

viztopia

I have a limited company, lets call it "john and sara" ltd. i get paid once a fortnight from my only customer and they write a cheque made payable to john and sara (no mention of the limited company). i have been lodging this cheque to the company bank a/c no problem. however i lodged the last cheque last week and when i checked my online banking it wasnt there. i rang the bank and they were after lodging the cheque to the personal account of "john and sara" they said that as the cheque was made payable to John and Sara then they cant lodge it to the company account. this had never been a problem before. i do not have access to the persoanl account even though my name is on it. it was set up as a joint account in different times when things were better!! there is no way that the people that pay me are going to change the name of who they are paying - this is simply not an option. is there any other way i can solve this? i mentioned to the bank that i could register the trading name "john and sara" to the limited company but they said they could only accept lodgements that were signed by both John and Sara. however this is not an option as i can not get the signature of the other person. does this sound right? it is also worth mentioning that the other person/director is my wife and we are going through a messy seperation. i as a majority shareholder in the company have given her 28 days notice that there is going to be an EGM that will remover her as a director.

BnA

OP

Firstly, sorry to hear you are going through a sh1tty time.

If the customer is going to continue to write cheques to "John and Sara" then you will have no option but to lodge them into John and Sara's personal account. You have got away with it up to now lodging it to the company, but now that it has been highlighted, that bank will not allow you to do it again.

You could chance your arm and try lodging the cheque in a different branch of the bank. Or you could try lodging it into a personal account in a different bank altogether. But both of these options are just chancing your arm and even if you got lucky and they worked for a while, they won't work long term.

Really, as far as I can see you only have 2 options:

1) Talk to your wife and get her to give you access to the joint account. I think even if she did agree to this, you would still be in a mess. You would always have the fear that she could clear it out. Even from her point of view, she should be wary about leaving full control of the joint account over to you and just leaving it. You could mis-use the account in ways that could affect her credit rating because her name is on it.

2) Get the customer to change
You say there is no way that the customer is going to change the name on the cheque. Do you mind if I ask why ? Surely it would not be that big of a deal for them. It would happen us regularly that companies change names, get taken over, move etc and we'd have to change payment details. I think you really should look at this option again.

Mr. Presentable

Move your company account to a different bank.

kmick

Tell the bank they are asreholes and open an account with someone else. They work for you and are acting like idiots. Point this out to a manager and tell him your business is going elsewhere if they dont comply with your request.

jeckle

Technically the bank is right regarding the payee’s, but considering they have accepted the cheque on a regular basis up to this it does seem a bit OTT. I have noticed that AIB seems to have gotten very sticky as regards rules of late, & don’t seem to be at all ‘customer friendly’, despite their advertisements, but that could be just my personal experience.

Anyway, I don’t think they should have taken it upon themselves just to go ahead & lodge the cheque into the personal account without contacting you beforehand. After all you did (I assume) complete a lodgement slip with the company account number on it, so if there was a problem with it they should have either posted it back to you explaining that a second endorsement signature was required or contacted you by phone to ask you how you wanted to proceed. It was not your intention to lodge it to the personal account, so, seeing as they now seem to be ‘doing things by the book’ it’s strange that they aren’t following through with this policy as regards lodgements, so you may want to bring this to their attention.

Could it be the case that ‘Sarah’ was somehow involved in this transaction? It’s not beyond the realms of possibility that the bank contacted her & that she instructed them to go ahead & lodge it to the personal account, or that she had contacted them on another occasion about the matter. If she is dealing with a solicitor or accountant this might be the case. This of course may not be the case, but anything is possible when things go a bit sour. The bank should disclose this to you if she has given any instructions to them regarding the business account.

If I was in your position I would instruct the bank to reverse the transaction (& recall the cheque if necessary) for the reason that you did not instruct them to lodge it to the personal account & intend getting the drawer to alter the payee so as you can lodge it to the account to which you intended. If they say it’s too late, I would instruct them to sort the matter out, as as far as I can see they were in the wrong.

BnA

That is a good point jeckle. Can the bank lodge the cheque into a different account than is on the lodgement slip ? I don't think so. At best, they could refuse to lodge it into the Company account, But I don't think they can just lodge it into a different account.

Also, I would wonder, is it because of your personal situation that they have got picky about this. Are they aware if your situation ? Is it possible that they were instructed by Sarah to stop doing this.

Either way, unless you get the customer to write the cheques to the company, I can't see how you would get around it. Even if you did move to another bank and open a company account and they did accept cheques to John and Sarah, I think you would be leaving yourself wide open for the other party to sue you in a years time to get the money back off you as, by right, Sarah is entitled to half of that money in a cheque that is made out to "John & Sarah".

jeckle

I don't think that they can do anything like this just off their own bat (well they can but they shouldn't IMO).

As I see it if a company lodges a cheque to a company account the cheque/payment will in effect go through the company's accounting channels at some stage or other. The cheque that the OP was lodging was a payment from a customer of the company, presumably for goods or services supplied to them by the company, so would have to show as a lodgement to the company account, & not to someone's personal account, unless the personal account was associated with the business for accounting/revenue purposes.

It's not unusual for banks to refuse to accept cheques as lodgements to accounts due to the payee not matching the exact account name & without being endorsed by the actual payee(s), but it is unusual for the bank to decide where to lodge it.

antoinolachtnai

You are in deep water here and you need legal advice here.

viztopia

thanks for all the advice. i had been lodging the cheques and the bank teller had been asking me to sign the back of it. he had never mentioned anything about my wife. when all this blew up i got the cheque back and there was a signature on it for my wife but it wasnt hers. i asked the bank about it and one of the tellers had signed it!! it looks like he took the easy route out and signed it rather than send it back to us to get both signatories. looks like he will lose his job now. Also i didnt mention that my wifes sister works for aib but in a different brach so i would say she has some involvement in this.

FusionNet

Any chance your wife blew the whistle on it? If your going to kick her as a director have you any idea how long that will take? Id open another account in another bank. I know my bank cash cheques they shouldnt, as in they should wait the five days but they are a nice bank, well sometimes!!

Is there any particular reason your client wount change the name on the cheque? Or would they consider doing a EFT in future?

BnA

Kerrist on a bike... If that is true, then the teller in question is freggin NUTS. I know he thought he was doing you a favour.... but that was simply moronic. It more than likely will cost him his job if true.

Paddyontherun

kmick wrote: »

Tell the bank they are asreholes and open an account with someone else. They work for you and are acting like idiots. Point this out to a manager and tell him your business is going elsewhere if they dont comply with your request.

The Bank are arseholes and acting like idiots for simply applying the law? Would you be quite happy to see a cheque made payable to you (solely or jointly) lodged to someone else's account and the proceed taken by that other person?
Also do you support the banks over Ansbacher, the DIRT scandal where the banks did what customers told them and opened bogus accounts - get a grip.

mcaul

Just tell the customer that the bank has brought in new rules and that cheques have to be written in the corporate name of the company and not in the names of the directors.

You could have a trading name "John & Sara Back Rubbing" and a cheque made out to "John & Sara" would be fine.

Another reason is the realtionship manager in the bank has had contact from your partner and is applying the rules unneccessarily hard?

the_syco

Paddyontherun wrote: »

The Bank are arseholes and acting like idiots for simply applying the law? Would you be quite happy to see a cheque made payable to you (solely or jointly) lodged to someone else's account and the proceed taken by that other person?

It looks like this is what is happening now...