[Christien]

I realize laws differ everywhere, but I'm looking for some general info about what would happen if one party cashed a cheque made payable jointly, without the other party's consent. I've got a situation here at work where an insurance company paid out a total loss, made jointly payable to the insured and to us, the lienholder. The insured should sign it, mail it to us, then we'll cash it and apply it to his balance.

Would we have recourse against the bank if he signed it and cashed it himself? What if he forged a signature from us? If we have no recourse against the bank and he did indeed cash it himself, we're out $6K, because guaranteed he'll have spent it on hookers and blow (i.e. pi$$ed it away).

Hopefully this isn't the case, and it's in the mail on its way to us, but I'm concerned because before the cheque was issued he was easy to get hold of. Now his cell phone is always "unavailable", meaning pay-as-you-go ran out.

Thanks for any ideas.