Sold a vehicle and chap wants to pay with above, a few questions:

1) my understanding has always been that this is as good as a bankers draft, is cleared funds etc

2) cannot be cancelled

3) takes as long as a normal cheque to clear (this for me is a bad thing).

1) Wrong
2) Wrong
3) Right

The general law relating to cheques applies to building society cheques. This means that such cheques can be stopped. Building society cheques should not be treated like cash and should be allowed to clear in the normal way. However, it is rare for a stop to be put on such a cheque and it would normally only occur in cases of theft or forgery.

http://www.bsa.org.uk/consumer/factsheets/cheques.htm

No reason why he can’t go to the BS cash his own cheque and pay you in cash.

definatle NOT as good as cash.. brittania had thousands of blank cheques stolen at one point.. cash is king.. even if a cheque is cleared the money can be clawed back without your permission..

cash cash cash and if youve any doubt take cash instead..

Ref 1) I think some of the urban myth is that when a BS cheque is raised by the branch and printed out (rather than hand-written) this can only be done if the account has sufficient funds in it at the time. The problems start if those funds are withdrawn a few minutes later from the machine outside…

Thanks everyone, good to know. Have said cash or bank transfer only!

even if a cheque is cleared the money can be clawed back without your permission

Hmm, I’m not sure it can you know. It depends what you mean by ‘cleared’.

Yes, there’s pre-clearing and then there’s clearing. Pre-clearing is the basis for many scams.

Best is to go to building society with him and get the cash out. If he just brings cash it could be fake, can you tell ?

@IHN has the answers to your original question.

Easily faked as lots of people don’t know what they’re looking at. working in a bike shop that got stung for 8k when building societies turned to banks in the 90s.