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Home >> Checks/Money Orders >> Checks You Received
Problems Cashing a Four Party Check
How can I cash a check that is made out to four parties when nobody on the check is ever in the same state and any time? My landlord wrote the deposit check to all of us at the end of the lease.
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 If only your landlord had an appreciation of how difficult it is to negotiate a multiple payee check! First, let's see if there is an "out" for you. If the check lists the four payees and joins them with the word "OR" ("JOSH OR SAM OR ANTOINETTE OR JUDY," OR "JOSH, SAM, ANTOINETTE OR JUDY"), it should only take one endorsement by any one of the payees to negotiate the check. At the other end of the spectrum, if the word "AND" or the ampersand symbol ("&") is used, all payees have to endorse. If "and" or an ampersand does not appear in the payee list, the law usually permits any one of the payees to endorse and negotiate the check, but you'll find that a lot of banks will require all to sign before accepting such a check for deposit.
Assuming you're stuck with a check that needs all the payees' endorsements, you've got a logistic nightmare, because even if you could get all four payees to sign, a bank might still refuse the check if it did not get a chance to verify each of the endorsements against a piece of acceptable ID, and witness the signing. The best thing to do would be to ask the landlord to issue four separate checks, each for 25% of the total due. Print out this page and give it to the landlord to help make your case.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 6/12/07
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