Paul Terry wrote:

This isn't a problem, because legal tender is not an issue in
day-to-day life. I've never made a transaction for which legal
tender was necessary.

You always pay in advance in restaurants, hairdressers and taxis?

It doesn't matter whether Mike pays in advance or in arrears for such
services. Legal tender is only involved if there is a dispute that goes to
court.

If Mike then pays into court the exact amount due, in legal tender, he
cannot be successfully sued for the debt.

That is the only application of the term legal tender in the UK. Many
people assume it has some wider meaning, but it really doesn't.

Every other explanation I've ever been given of legal tender is that it also
applies before the court stage - indeed a court would likely immediately
strike the pursiuit of a debt where the creditor had declined legal tender.
And the explanation further down implies that the concept exists precisely
to protect the consumer from being charged late payment fees by a creditor
refusing to accept the payment offered.

(I assume that a cabbie can't decline a payment made with a £50 Bank of
England note but *can* say that he can't give change on it?)