Bank Cheque question (OR BEARER)

Got a bank cheque from bank to cover 10% of deposit.
Now I have to hand it to realeastate agent.
There is nothing in cheque to proof this is my money, which is silly, I know I will retain the detachable cheque butt as evidence, but it is silly that the cheque itself does not bear my name.
And there is "OR BEARER" line which always frightened me. (But before it was smaller amount for rent)
Does it mean that realestate agency's representative can present cheque in a bank and top up his/her personal account with it?
(There are of course two parallel lines and NOT NEGOTIABLE)
What if I will be robbed on my road to the agency?

Cannot understand why are bank cheques considered secure?

I believe the "or bearer" should be crossed out. Is it made out to real estate company? The " not negotiable" just means it needs to be banked in account of the company name on cheque or individual whatever the case may be. But don't get robber as they may want more than the Bank cheque.

Not negotiable means it can't be exchanged for cash - has to be banked into the account. Bank cheques can't be cancelled (easily) so the agent has assurance the cheque won't be cancelled unlike a personal cheque that you could easily cancel. (Although I have heard of a cancelled bank cheque being presented once)

Basically, get a receipt to protect yourself. Agents are trained and audited for their use of trust accounts so it would be extraordinary that your deposit won't be honored.

Thank you. This is what we actually did. In fact the agency's salesperson was about to issue a receipt w/o our reminding Given that we did not care about "OR BEARER" -- it is now their problem with the cheque "to keep it secret and keep it safe"
Actually I see that culture of usage of cheques is almost completely lost. We all use them rarely and sometimes we even get them in our mail boxes. But the majority completely do not understand what all these words and phrases on cheques do actually mean.

Bank cheques are almost as easily cancelled as personal cheques, just a different back end process. It happens reasonably often. The "or bearer" makes no difference if it is crossed not negotiable. If a cheque is crossed it means the cash must be banked into a bank account, if not neg then it must be the account of who the cheque is make out to.

There will be mica encoding on the cheque that can link back to the account the funds were taken from. That is what is on the other half of the stub that you have from the bank.

Crossing a cheque and even making it not neg means that it is less risky as it cannot be exchanged immediately for cash. If it is not crossed then one could go into the issuing bank and have it exchanged for cash. BTW if you want a different bank to give you cash against it immediately it is usually called bills purchased and the bank will pass on any credit risk to you. But that is for next time...hehe

Wow! Thank you for filling gaps in my financial knowledge. How do you know about this all, do you work in finances? Alas, our banks have little to nothing on their sites about bank cheques and what all this lines and words means. I found some information on south african, new zealand and british banks' sites, but very little information on Australian sites.

I think the land contracts have usually an amended definition of "cheque": that it should be a bank cheque, not a personal, because even though they are both cancellable and there is a risk for the vendor or agent that you cancel, there is difference that if you are not going to cancel then a bank cheque is backed by bank's funds while a personal one is backed by personal funds and may be dishonoured because of lack of funds.


Actually this is exactly what a teller in CBA told me. He said that if I am in cooling off period, I could send a rescind notice and cancel check for small fee w/o actually visiting the vendors office. The same in case of theft or in case of unauthorised use. However, as I can see from your explanation there is almost no room to unauthorised use for a NON NEGOTIABLE and crossed check.

In all but extraordinary cases a bank cheque can only be cancelled by taking it back to the bank - the only exception being where it is lost, and there is a process behind this. I have heard of cars being purchased with already cancelled bank cheques & advised to always check the dates.

Obviously if you've handed the cheque over you can't also take it for cancellation.