Legal Question in Landlord & Tenant Law in New Jersey

Unfortunately, you likely have no recourse. What was the date on the check?

Depending on the date of the check, you could even be responsible for "check kiting" - which is writing a check when you know that there is insufficient funds on your account, which you cant do, even if you know that the money will be there by the time the check is deposited and cleared.

However, if the check was post-dated, meaning you gave it to him in March, but was written post-dated to be cashed on April 3rd, then there is likely no check kiting problem - in fact, there is nothing illegal about post-dating a check. However, you need to make sure that the person you gave it to knew of the post-date, so that he didnt try to deposit it. If he did, the bank might do like it did in this case, cash, then hit you with the various fees.

Even if the landlord was responsible, it would cost you more money to hire an attorney (or even to do it yorself), then it would be to just pay the fees and penalities.

More importantlly, going forward, you should discuss with your landlord the need to rewrite the lease so that the due date of your check is after the 3rd of each month. That should be agreeable to both sides, thereby avoiding this problem in the future,