Legal Definitions - stop-payment order

A stop-payment order is an instruction given by a bank customer to their bank to not honor a specific check. This means that if the check is presented for payment, the bank will not pay it.

For example, if a customer writes a check to a vendor for a service, but then decides to cancel the service, they can issue a stop-payment order to their bank to prevent the vendor from cashing the check.

Another example is if a customer loses their checkbook or suspects that someone has stolen it, they can issue a stop-payment order for all the checks in the checkbook to prevent any unauthorized transactions.

Stop-payment orders are useful in situations where a customer needs to prevent a specific check from being cashed or prevent unauthorized transactions.