I no legal expert but one thing he should have done was open an escrow account at the bank and deposit those checks into the escrow account. He then should have seekend legal advice and determined why they were not cashing his checks. I had a client who rented a building. One day the landlord quit cashing the checks, so she did what I stated above. She was able to determine that the landlord was trying to establish cause to not renew her lease. A few letters from the attorneys and it all got squared away - they now still have a lease 15 years later.