Dishonored Checks and Legal Liability: The Cheque Act (No. 5941)

If the check is paid only in part or not at all, the drawee bank annotates 'dishonored' on the back (Cheque Act m.3). The holder may then complain to the competent enforcement criminal court under Cheque Act m.5.

The right to complain lapses if not exercised within three months of learning of the act and in any event one year from its commission. The complaint must be accompanied by the original check (or a certified copy), the dishonored annotation, and the endorsement chain establishing the holder's status.

Under Cheque Act m.5/1, the issuer of a dishonored check is, upon the holder's complaint, sentenced to a judicial fine of up to 1,500 days per check. The fine may not be less than the dishonored portion of the check value. If unpaid, the fine is directly converted into imprisonment.

The court also orders a ban on issuing checks and opening check accounts. Information is transmitted through UYAP to MERSİS and the Risk Centre; the Risk Centre notifies banks (Law No. 5941, m.5/8).

A special route for collecting the holder's claim is enforcement by attachment specific to negotiable instruments (İİK m.167 et seq.). The debtor is served a payment order with a ten-day period; the debtor must raise every objection — to the signature (İİK art.168/4) and to the debt, discharge, extension of time, limitation or venue (İİK art.168/5) — before the enforcement court within five days. The objection does not automatically stay the proceedings.

The holder may also exercise rights of recourse against endorsers and avalists under TCC m.808 et seq., thereby extending the chain of liability and increasing the chances of collection.

In enforcement and bankruptcy proceedings, the choice of enforcement track must be determined by the basis of the claim and the available documents. Although ordinary enforcement, commercial-paper enforcement, judgment-based enforcement, preliminary attachment, composition with creditors and bankruptcy may pursue the same outcome, they differ in time limits, available objections and costs.

Dates of service, objection or payment deadlines, attachment requests, sale-request periods and complaint deadlines are the most critical stages of the file. For this reason the dates of service of the payment order, enforcement order, attachment record, valuation report and sale notice should be tracked in a separate schedule.

For the creditor, interest calculation, the clarity of the enforcement request and the inquiry into the debtor's assets are decisive; for the debtor, grounds of objection, claims of exempt assets and the possibility of a negative declaratory action must be assessed from the outset. Otherwise, a procedural oversight may eclipse a meritorious position.