Legal Definitions - postdate

Postdate means to mark a document, agreement, or financial instrument with a date that is in the future, meaning it is later than the actual calendar date on which the item was created, signed, or issued.

Here are some examples to illustrate this concept:

• Imagine a small business owner who needs to pay a supplier but knows their client's payment won't clear until next week. To ensure the supplier gets paid without overdrawing their account, the business owner writes a check today but dates it for seven days from now. This is an example of postdating, as the check is physically written today, but the date written on it is a future date, indicating when it can be cashed.

• Consider two parties finalizing a complex business contract. They sign the agreement today, but they mutually decide that the terms and obligations of the contract should officially commence on the first day of the next quarter, which is three weeks away. Therefore, they write the future date of the next quarter's start on the contract as its effective date. By doing so, they have postdated the contract, making its legal effect begin at a later point in time than its actual signing date.

• A university department head is preparing an official memo to faculty about a new policy regarding research grant applications. The memo is drafted and ready to be distributed today, but the new policy isn't meant to go into effect until the start of the next academic year, several months away. To reflect this, the department head puts the future date of the new academic year on the memo. This action constitutes postdating the memo, signaling that while it's being prepared now, its official applicability is set for a future date.