What constitutes 'Legal Tender'?

[matchmaker]

wildcat45 said:

OT. When did Scotand abandon the £1 note?

They didn't. RBS still issue them.




Although I'd rather have a few of these in my wallet................

[Shaw Tarse]

matchmaker said:

Although I'd rather have a few of these in my wallet................

How many shop keepers would accept them?

[rs1952]

Noger said:

rs1952 said:

Nobody is obliged in law to accept a bankers draft, a cheque, a credit card payment or, come to that, a bunch of carrots in lieu of money.

There are plenty of situations in which a reasonable offer of payment must be accepted. For example a debt to a financial institution can't enforce legal tender, ok so that is regulatory rather than statutory, but the effect is the same. Except for the carrots

When I made my first post on this thread I guessed that half the country didn't get the concept of "legal tender"

After reading the further posts since, I now think that figure is close to three-quarters, if not more

Of course there are examples of cases where "legal tender" doesn't apply. Say I bought your house for £300k. I would think you a bit daft if you said "I don't want your bleedin' building society cheque, I want 60,000 fivers please"! And you'd also lose the sale ...

I come back to the original point. Forget the niceties of the gambling acts, insurance, bunches of carrots, whatever. If I make an offer to pay a debt to you, and you accept what I'm offering in payment, I settle my debt to you however we have agreed to do it and that's the end of the matter. "Legal tender" has got bugger all to do with it.

[matchmaker]

When I worked in the court in Aberdeen we had a list of the limits on accepting coins pinned to the wall in the fines office. We had to refer to it occasionally.

I took a copy of this when I moved to a smaller court. One day we had a punter who was fined £100 for a breach of the peace after trial. He wasn't a happy bunny...............

The following week I saw him toiling up the path to my offices carrying a heavy holdall. He came into the fines office and proceeded to pour 1p coins onto the counter. "There's payment for my fking fine. Give me a fking receipt". I politely told him that I couldn't accept more than 20p in copper and pointed out the notice on the wall behind him.

Boy, did he hit the roof! So much so in fact that he wouldn't calm down and leave with his pennies. It ended up with me calling the police (who were next door) and him being arrested for a breach of the peace in the Sheriff Clerk's office

As you can imagine the Sheriff took a dim view of this when Mr Unhappy appeared from custody the next morning. 60 days

[Noger]

rs1952 said:

I come back to the original point. Forget the niceties of the gambling acts, insurance, bunches of carrots, whatever. If I make an offer to pay a debt to you, and you accept what I'm offering in payment, I settle my debt to you however we have agreed to do it and that's the end of the matter. "Legal tender" has got bugger all to do with it.

"I just googled it and am now out of my depth" in other words

[Jimmyarm]

The thing about pennies has always confused me, it is 'money' after all.

I have about £10 of pennies in a pot, does this mean that all but 20p of it is worthless ?

[streaky]

Jimmyarm said:

The thing about pennies has always confused me, it is 'money' after all.

I have about £10 of pennies in a pot, does this mean that all but 20p of it is worthless ?

No. The limits on coinage - as I posted some posts back - only applies to settlement of a debt.

Streaky

[rs1952]

Noger said:

rs1952 said:

I come back to the original point. Forget the niceties of the gambling acts, insurance, bunches of carrots, whatever. If I make an offer to pay a debt to you, and you accept what I'm offering in payment, I settle my debt to you however we have agreed to do it and that's the end of the matter. "Legal tender" has got bugger all to do with it.

"I just googled it and am now out of my depth" in other words

Stop being a tit, and look at the Royal Mint link

[Noger]

rs1952 said:

Stop being a tit, and look at the Royal Mint link

I did, and it seems to be referring to Part 37 payments into court (relevant to my job up until about 5 years ago, as you had had to back part 36 offers with them, but I digress).

However, that is a little like defining an elephant as just the trunk.

Before that must have come the offer to settle in legal tender, for that to have been refused, and then for the payment into court to pave the way for the defence of tender before claim.

We know that certain amounts, like unliquidated damages, do not have this defence. I forget the name of the case, but have a vague notion of a construction company, anyway ..,

"You broke my fence"
"Sorry, here is a tenner to cover it"
"Pah"

...can still go to court even if I pay the tenner into court. (cheap fence assumed ).

But..

"You owe me a tenner for that meal as indicated on the menu and this bill"
"Certainly, here is a tenner"
"Pah"

....could (if civil procedure is followed) never get to court at all.

My question (to which I don't know the answer btw) was about the contractual enforceabilty of the debt (let's ignore liquidated damages as being boring for now).

My feeling is that for this chain of events to occur, the debt would need to be something that was legally enforceable via a court. Hence the question about gambling contracts, past and present.

Also, despite knowing the process for payments into court for Part 36, I know nowt about pitching up at a court with a tenner and saying "Mr 1952 refused to accept this, so here you go, you have it". Has anyone tried it ? Would they just tell you to Foxtrot Oscar ?

[grumpyscot]

The interesting thing is that, as Scottish notes are not legal tender in England / Wales, Bank of ENGLAND notes are not legal tender in Scotland! (And that's what Bank of England say!).

However, Scots don't bother playing the stupid game and just accept the English notes, even though they are more regularly faked than the Scottish ones.