Who is liable for the fees incurred by me according to the law in Chicago?

Question

On 5/26/2007, I mailed my monthly rent check to my landlord for rent due on 6/1/2007. On 6/5/2007 I received a five day notice from the company stating that they’d never received my rent check. I was then instructed that I had to obtain a cashier’s check, or that they would start eviction proceedings, which costs $7, and was assessed late fees in the amount of $19.40, because, again, they said they’d never received my check. On 8/10/2007, the original check I sent them was cashed, sending my account into a negative dollar amount, which caused $75 in insufficient funds fees to be assessed to my checking account. I contacted Bonheur Realty regarding this, asking for some sort of compensation, because obviously this was an error on their part. There is no other avenue set up for us to send our rent checks, and if the post office loses them, or the bank makes an error, it is not right that the tenants have to bear the burden of these mistakes. Am I due back all the fees I've incurred?

Answer 1

No, you are not due any fees back. You should have placed a stop payment on the original check, that way the Realty Company would not have been able to cash it.

A better way to handle this going forward is to sign up for an online banking with bill payment option that offers protection from problems like this (National City Bank has such a program), the only catch is you have to put through the payment online by a certain date in advance in order for the check to arrive on time.

If the check does get lost in the mail, all you have to do is then contact the bank, who will contact your landlord and provide proof that payment was sent and on what date and they work out out the late payment or any other penalties with the place the check was issued to and you don't have to pay for a stop payment on the check.