Consumer rights explained: Can a forgotten expired cheque for €300 be re-issued?

Q: My daughter graduated college this year and when sorting through her stuff, she came across a cheque for €300. It was a refund of her deposit from the student accommodation complex she was in for three years. However, the cheque seems to have expired. 

She contacted the student accommodation company asking them to re-issue the cheque and they have refused to do so, even though the bank has also confirmed that no other cheque was issued to her. What are her rights in this situation?

Noreen, Roscommon 

Noreen, congrats on your daughter’s graduation, though I’m sorry to hear she’s having trouble recovering the deposit for her accommodation. Your daughter’s situation is a useful reminder to cash cheques promptly once they’re issued.

I see from your question that the cheque from the accommodation company may be expired.  Irish banks consider cheques that are more than six months old to be ‘stale’ and can refuse to honour them. 

Although the student accommodation company has refused to issue a replacement cheque, it still owes your daughter the underlying debt – the refund of her €300 deposit.

Your next steps in this situation are to ask the company again to reissue the cheque. Put the request in writing, if you haven’t already done so. It may be helpful to include written confirmation from the bank that your daughter hasn’t presented any other cheque from the accommodation company. The accommodation company may also want evidence that their first cheque has been destroyed. 

If you still don’t get a satisfactory response, you can try to recover the deposit by complaining to the Residential Tenancies Board (RTB). The RTB handles disputes related to private rental accommodation, including student specific accommodation (SSAs). You can get more information from rtb.ie/disputes.