If a check I wrote was misrouted to the wrong payee, how will my bank correct this? Will it simply reroute the funds to the correct payee? What if this was discovered several months later, and my account is now closed?
Unless you become aware of the error and call it to your bank's attention, no adjustment is likely to be made. Frankly, the volume of payments banks handle today is so high, that reviewing the payee and endorsement on each check is impossible.
To start the adjustment process, even if your account is closed, you will need to get an affidavit from the intended payee to the effect that he or she did not endorse the check and did not obtain any benefit from it. Then you can give the affidavit to the bank with a claim that the bank paid the check in error. Be sure to do this as soon as you can; there are limits to how far a bank can go back to make such adjustments. The bank will then enter a claim against the depositary bank based on its acceptance of the check for deposit from the wrong payee. When you get your funds back, you can send a payment to the correct payee.
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Unless you become aware of the error and call it to your bank's attention, no adjustment is likely to be made. Frankly, the volume of payments banks handle today is so high, that reviewing the payee and endorsement on each check is impossible.