Issued a joint cheque but split from ex dp 7 years ago

[Poppiesway]

So, Exdp left 7 years ago. When he left he left me to pay all bills on my own and support our 2 DC myself. he does not pay maitenance or help financially at all (another thread..)
Today I receive a cheque from the building society that we took a joint loan out with 7 and a half years ago. I paid all of this loan back myself. Apparently they over charged on interest and have refunded me a substantial (to me) amount of money.

However, the cheque is in joint names.
We obv don't have a joint account now (he left me that with 2.5k overdraft to pay off as he wiped it out when he left and I shut down once I'd paid it off)

My question is.. Am I able to cash the cheque without telling him? Into an account in my name? I don't want him having money from the loan that I paid for.
I may be able to go into the building society and ask tomorrow but I'm being impatient and trying to find the answer myself now.

Has anyone managed to cash a cheque into a single account when it's addresses to joint names?

In my head I've paid for ds1's school weekend trip and another job which Ive not been able to afford to do just yet with the cheque!

You have to go back to the issuer of the cheque for it to be changed. The bank will not let you pay a cheque in joint names into a sole account

Thankyou,
We weren't married, only proof I have of us splitting up is the mortgage, it is with them also, they have dates for when his name was taken off the mortgage but they werent able to take his name off the loan too.
I could try my bank tomorrow and ask them to print out all the dates the money was taken from my account? If they will do that..

My bank lets me pay joint cheques into my non joint account.

I can also pay joint cheques into my non-joint account. Give it a try!

That's illegal. Your bank shouldn't be doing that

As someone who used to work for a bank, you cannot pay a jointly named cheque into a sole account and a bank should not be allowing you to do so. The key however is the amount. If it is under that banks security threshold (mine was £100), the cheque is unlikely to get double checked when it reaches the clearing centre, and as such will go unnoticed. The major problem is that it is fraud carrying out such a transaction and not only the bank can be prosecuted, but so can the person paying it in.
You can go back to the cheque issuer and ask them to reissue it. Unfortunately, while they can consider your request, they are not legally obliged to do it. Regardless of whether your ex paid the loan or not, he was still jointly responsible and would have been persued if it had gone unpaid. I appreciate you would not have wanted your credit file damaging as a result of this and so paid it, but when you take out joint borrowing, these are the terms you agree to. It would take some considerable amount of evidence to prove you were not together while the loan was being paid, especially as you weren't married. Taking his name off the mortgage doesn't mean anything. Was he previously named on your council tax and then removed when he left?
Start with the cheque issuer. I wish you the best of luck x

Yep.. They wouldn't take the chq.
So far they've agreed to send me half and I have to provide a letter from the ex stating that we seperated in 2009 and as I was the sole person paying the loan off i can be paid the whole amount back. Thankfully he has agreed to do this, and provide me with a letter to attach to my credit file that we are no longer financial associates as he is still listed as an associate on there, even though we have had nothing in joint names for over 7 years now, and he has been living at different addresses for that long. He was taken off of all the household bills at the time of him leaving.
Ive always said over the past 7 years I will never have joint finances with some one again, this has just reinforced that for me!

That's fantastic news Poppies