Mother-in-law refuses to accept I didn't change my name

[BadElsa]

My MIL has always refused to acknowledge that I didn't change my name when I married her son. Now she's sent me a cheque for my birthday addressed to my married name (that I've never used). Is there anyway I can deposit this if I take my marriage certificate to the bank? I do have a joint account with my husband.

I’d send it back and say they won’t accept it at the bank- but she can send another in your name if she wants to.

Is there anyway I can deposit this if I take my marriage certificate to the bank?

Its discretionary. The bank don't have to accept it and it depends on whether you get served by a jobs worth.

I did this after getting married and was told that my bank would only accept up to 6 months after getting married. The teller then proceeded to tell me that legally all women had to change their name on marriage. They did begrudgingly cash it but it was made clear to me that they were not obliged to and I was an inconvenience as a woman.

The teller was a woman.

I've had similar incidents with other banks since.

Its almost as if brains melt at the thought of woman keeping her own name.

Give the cheque to your husband and tell him to deal with your mother and tell her to stop being passive aggressive. The problem won't go away until you get him to confront her for being so rude.

Thanks all. I accepted it because she posted it in a card. FIL is extremely ill at the moment so, much as I'd like to, I'm not keen to confront her on it at the moment. My own family also send things to my married name and give her daughter my husband's surname (which is also wrong). It's crazy the people who think you are legally obliged to change it! I might try bank machine to joint acc - thanks for tip Smegz. Will let you know how I get on.

Don't rise to the bait - just bank it (assuming you can and only hand back in the unlikely event the bank says no ) thank her for the gift and carry on .

I don’t bank cheques from MIL, I just thank her for them.

whereas the patent office struggled to accept that I had changed my name. Had to get a lawyer to sort it out.

MIL loves buying those enormous birthday cards that don't fit through the letterbox. The sorting office now has about ten year's worth of them as she sends them to the wrong surname and obviously I have no ID to collect them. I gave up telling her that my name is my name after a couple of years and just let the post office build up a nice collection now.

Yes you can bank it. My GM died last year and left me a small amount of money, I presume her will was written before I married and the cheque was made out to my maiden name.

Yes, but that's a name you've previously legally been known as. The OP's MIL has written a cheque for a name that has never legally existed. The bank might be nice about it upon presentation of a marriage certificate, but there's no legal reason to recognise the validity of the name.