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Home >> Checks/Money Orders >> Checks You Wrote
Overdraft: Can a bank pay the largest item first?
I will be as succinct as possible...as I have a "complicated" problem. I had written a large rent check a few days ago. In the interim, other checks I had written cleared through the account. Having looked at my account, online, at 12:36am, June 12, I saw that two smaller items were paid, successfully leaving an insufficiency regarding the imminent clearing of the larger rent check.
By 9:30am, I saw that the rent check cleared as well as a smaller bill. Well, my bank lied about the date of clearing the larger of the insufficiencies, moving all the debits up so it appeared that the large check was presented first and the three others followed.
They told me that it was their right to pay the largest check first. The larger check was not presented until the early morning hours of June 12th, not the June 11th date they provided. I have no problem paying the two items that came in as insufficient, just not those prior. Who is correct in this matter?
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 Some banks disclose the order in which they pay items; as they are presented, by check number, largest first, smallest first, etc., but unless it is a state requirement it doesn't have to be disclosed at all, and it is up to the bank to decide what the payment order is. There is more information in this BQ Q&A.
As for when the checks appeared on the bank's online inquiry system, that does not dictate the order of payment, either. Your bank evidently updates its online records throughout the day, but when an item appears on that system doesn't necessarily mean that's when the item was presented for payment. In all likelihood the rent check, etc., actually were presented for payment on the eleventh, the same day as the first checks you mentioned.
Published on BankingQuestions.com 6/19/07
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