Unpaid...counterfeit Or Fraud

[pastafreak]

I was issued a cheque as a gift from my late in-laws estate. My ex brother in law was the executor and signed the cheque.
I deposited it last Friday. I had a message this morning that these cheques are bouncing. As mine has. What could be the reason for this? My ex BIL wants bank details, I assume to transfer the funds.

[Buenchico]

The most obvious (and, almost certainly, the most common) reason for a cheque to bounce is the dreaded "insufficient funds". That might be because someone has nicked all of the money from the account (or because it was never paid into the relevant account in the first place, either deliberately or, say, by someone accidentally paying it into a different account). However it could also simply be because the money that was paid into the account hadn't 'cleared' before the cheque drawn on that account was presented.

There are also other possible reasons, such as errors on the actual cheques, which are listed here:
https://stepupmoney.com/6-reasons-why-your-cheque-can-bounce/

In theory there's no great problem with providing someone with your bank's sort code and your account number. (After all, those details are provided every time that someone writes a cheque, as the information is printed on it). However I admit that I'd still feel slightly nervous about providing my account details to someone who'd already sent me a cheque that had bounced. If in doubt, ask for a banker's draft (which some banks refer to as a 'counter cheque'), which is actually drawn on the bank's own account, rather than that of the person handing over the money.

[pastafreak]

My daughter received hers as a deposit. She's in touch with my BIL...her uncle. I've no problem supplying the necessary details to him.
I didn't deposit the cheque until about 9 days after I received it...maybe everyone else got there before me! ;)

[Buenchico]

It could simply be that your ex-BIL paid most of the money due to the estate into the account but forget to pay a final cheque in. Then most people who received cheques which were drawn on the estate account would have been able to pay them into their own accounts but the last people who tried to do so would encounter the 'insufficient funds' problem. Your red-faced ex-BIL might then have realised that he's still got a cheque in his pocket that should have been paid into the estate account.

Only your ex-BIL will know the real reason though. Whoever answers here can do no more than guess at it.