No money in the bank to cover the cheque you wrote is not the schools fault. Three weeks isn't a long time to cash a cheque. When we sign our son up for soccer twice a year they hold back the cheque for the soccer strip for around 3 months from date of registration to first game.

You could ask the bank to refund the charge and enquire about overdraft facilities.

PS If you can pay using a credit card then thats the way to go :-)

In the UK, there is a plan to abolish cheques and I believe a preliminary date has been set. They are not sure what they are going to replace them with but self-initiated, online cash transfers are becoming more common using your online banking. All you need is the recipient's bank sort code and account number and the cash transfer is instantaneous. This is much easier than dealing with cheques and a record and balance update is immediately registered on your statement. Is this not possible in Canada? I believe you can transfer up to C$10,000 a month on line by Interac which is more or less the same thing.

Look into Quicken or Microsoft Money. I am amazed you believe that this in anyone's fault but your own.

I am still waiting for our school to cash a cheque for $250 that I wrote in November

I kinda hope they have forgotten, or lost it, but it is a pain towards the end of the month to keep budgeting for that to be cashed. But I do budget, and track everything on Microsoft Money, so really I'd have no recourse if I was out of funds on the day they finally see fit to bank the bloomin' thing.

Sure it's not hard. But it is a bit fiddly sometimes. Your spreadsheet does exactly what I described as doing before I had a computer and I also used one when I had my first computer until it crashed...literally...when the table collapsed.

But not everyone's financial arrangements justify a spreadsheet. For a variety of reasons I don't actually have pre-auth'd debits coming out of my account. Some come from my wife's account while others can only be pre-auth'd by credit card. Don't ask me why. Sometimes the only (or the best) option for making a payment is a cheque - plumbing repair, snow clearance etc. Or giving your kid a cheque for school to avoid taking $100 cash.

For 99% of my bank activity, the balance is reflected immediately. A spreadsheet isn't worth doing. I've written 8 cheques in 4 years. Everything else I do is instant.

Now I realise this could make it easier to argue it should be easy to keep track of a single cheque once in a while.

On the other hand for about 355 days a year the balance shown on line is exactly what's there and available to me. The missing days are the 4 or 5 days it takes for each of two cheques a year to be deposited.

And that is what you get used to isn't it?

Until someone takes three weeks to cash one of the buggers.

But there was money in the account to cover the cheque. 7 times as much when the the cheque was written. And then a series of further deposits increased that to 18 times the amount.

Okay, but then you are used to that. You can adjust the way you do your financial arrangements. I was used to every cheque I've written being cashed within a week.

When the school says these payments need to be paid for a particular date, I don't think it unreasonable to think they want the money then rather than three weeks later.

I will ask and with this particular bank there would be additional charges (defeating the object of picking them for free banking) for something not normally needed.

Now that this has happened I shall add a safeguard to avoid it in future.

Sadly not. The school does that for Photos and that's what I do then, but not for this.

And for the THIRD time I have not laid blame. I even accepted I was at fault for not following up to make sure.

Aren't you the lawyer? And you missed that?

Is it so unreasonable to expect a cheque to be cashed more quickly than three weeks when the recipient specifically set a date for the payment to be made?

When the school is collecting everyone's fees for graduation that a lots of cheques and paperwork they have to deal with, plus I am sure it will go through their own accounting system so 3 weeks is pretty acceptable.

Had to laugh when you said you had more than enough money in the account when you wrote the cheque - the money has to always be there until the cheque is cashed. I am sending you in front of Judge Judy

You and me both, my friend

Do you normally request that organizations make payments to you for no particular reason? Your suggestion that the bank or school reimburse you for fees that you incurred pursuant to a contract led me to believe that you thought it was fault of another.

I apologize for my lack of speed. I can see now that you do want money for nothing.

Bristol, if you're not blaming the bank, or the school, then why did you say in your opening post that you'd basically expect the bank to refund the penalty charges and pay a wee bit extra as goodwill?

I don't think the school has any obligation to present the cheque to any particular timescale. I'd see if the bank will waive the fee. I bank with TD and a couple of times they have allowed payments to go through even though it took the account overdrawn whereas in theory they could have stopped them and charged me. I got caught out with post dated cheques here initially but have just had to record these things more carefully. I'm sure everyone has their own system whether its a microsoft product or in my case just a simple little A6 "black&red" book which I can reconcile against the online account every week or so.

Try that with the bus driver too. And the market stallholder. Hell, why not tell the taxman that you'd rather not pay that bill either?

Out of the blue BT sent me a final demand for 15 GBP the other day. When I checked the records it was correct because they'd done a credit wrongly when the account was closed but then they never sent a proper bill for 18 months just a final demand. I said I didn't think it was reasonable to pay at this stage - she went to check with her manager and said they would waive the charge.

There's no harm in asking depending on the situation.

I really dont see how this is anyone elses fault or why anyone would hold out hope that the bank will waive the charges. Costs nothing to ask though.

FWIW a cheque I wrote in November to cover a ski club trip we made in December was finally processed in mid February, three weeks is nothing. As others have said, cheques are live for 6 months minimum.

To cover these bumps in the road of life my PC account has an overdraft facility to cover any miscalculations. I pay interest on it if/when it comes into play, plus something like a $5 processing fee if it has to be used in any given month, but its cheaper than having a cheque bounce. Any longer term shortfall is covered by the line of credit as the interest is lower.

Bristol, you screwed up - you can't pass the buck to anyone else. But I really see no harm in asking the bank as a customer of normally good standing to overlook the mistake just this once. I'd do just that in your circumstances - what's the worst that can happen?

Anyone know the length of time a personal cheque is valid for in Canada? Does it vary from bank to bank? I've heard 180 days or 6 months mentioned before but never seen anything "official" anywhere.