When can I be sure a questionable check has cleared?
Someone has sent me a check for 0 in payment for property damage they caused in a car accident. It would have been better if I had gotten a cashier's check or official check, but I'll have to make do with what I've got.
Since I've spoken directly with the person, and since I have their address and phone number, I'm fairly sure this is a good check. But I really can't be 100% sure.
So once I deposit it, when can I consider the check to be "cleared"? That is, at what point can I be sure that the 0 is irrevocably mine?
There are other questions that have dealt with something similar (like the advance-fee fraud that probably underpins this question) but since the focus of the question was different, there wasn't a clear answer on the time for clearing a check.
Thanks to anyone who knows.
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Years ago, I had a tenant who bounced a check now and then. I started going to the bank where his account was. With my ID they were agreeable to cashing the check against his account. The teller first checked his balance and only cashed when there were enough funds. One time he was short. I wrote a deposit slip and added the it took to clear the check.
As they say, your mileage may vary, I hear some banks won't even break a large bill for a non customer.
I tried to find that out once, and learned 'theoretically never'.
The reason is that the guy who gave you the check (name him guy-1) might have deposited a check from guy-2 a day before, and without that money, his check will bounce. Now guy-2 might have deposited a check from guy-3 a day before, and without that money, his check will bounce. Repeat for a while, and then bounce the check from guy-99, and it takes the banks months to unravel it. Yes, improbable. But.
A friend working in a bank explained me that, he had seen chains of three and four unravel, which took 20+ days.
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