Do building society cheques need time to clear?

Q I recently paid a building society cheque into my account with Intelligent Finance [Halifax's internet and telephone bank] to cover an outgoing credit card bill.

The direct debit I have set up for the credit card was then rejected because the bank says it needs five working days to clear the cheque. I always thought building society cheques acted as cash and didn't need any clearance time - is this not the case?

BC

A Building society cheques are the building society equivalent of bank drafts, and act as guaranteed funds. In other words, there is no way the cheque will bounce because the issuer is guaranteeing payment. You can't decide to stop a building society cheque after you've used it to pay for something because the building society will honour it no matter what you decide afterwards.

On the subject of funds clearance, however, that comes down to the individual institution you pay the cheque to. In other words, although funds are immediately available for the building society cheque to draw upon (making the cheque almost like cash), the cheque recipient still has its own clearing process, which can take several days.