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Free and Cheap Wills discussion area

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  • cepheus
    cepheus Posts: 20,053 Forumite
    edited 15 June 2012 at 11:41AM
    The Department of work and Pensions have just sent me three bills totalling around £500 for pension, pension credit and attendance allowance saying these were 'incorrectly paid into account' 19/4/12 to the 2/5/12. Mum died on the 17/4/12 and the DWP would have been informed automatically a few days later as a consequence of registering the death.

    So it's taken almost 2 months to send me these!
  • John_Pierpoint
    John_Pierpoint Posts: 8,391
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    When my mum died (2004) in hospital I was given two pieces of paper.
    One had to be registered to get the official "Death Certificate" the other acted as a death certificate and had to be sent to the social security (note lower case as the Three Letter Acronym tends to get changed to confuse the politics).

    Has the system changed in that the hospital/doctor/registrar now informs social security automatically ? Or does some computer and junior clerk. trawl the monthly death certificate returns looking for matches? (The UK social security number (NI) is a shambles and as far as I can discover was issued without even a check digit).

    Any way to get back on narrative 8 years a go the department was in a state of flux and my mother had failed to cash her winter fuel allowance (it had arrived a few days before her death).

    I reported the death and returned the £300 of fuel allowance and the pension book (those were the flexible days).

    The pension was acknowledged and then the pantomime started:
    The fuel allowance started a trip round the country and nearly a month later another payment of attendance allowance was made (into an account I had kept open as it was the one used to accept mum's very small dividend income.)

    So I faced with a situation where one section of the social security department was threatening me with hell fire and damnation (well actually court action).
    The other section (the peripatetic one) was writing letters full of undertakings to my MP (none of which were ever kept) about the fuel allowance.

    In the end I defended myself against the court action by writing a recorded delivery letter enclosing my defence and saying as far as I was concerned there was one department of social security and I would be only too happy to resolve the situation in a court of law.

    Never heard another thing; BUT the annoying outcome was that the fuel allowance was £300 and the attendance allowance a bit over £280.

    Moral of this story - the system works at its own pace and there is only a limited amount that can be done to hurry it along.

    Advice - Thinking of dying? Set up two bank accounts one for payments in and the other for payments out. Your executor will then be in control of your finances. The party holding the money can dictate the situation to a certain extent.
  • cepheus
    cepheus Posts: 20,053 Forumite
    edited 18 June 2012 at 9:39AM
    All that's required of the DWP is to examine if any payments after the death have been made in the deceased account, then write to the executor. It's difficult to understand why this should take more than a month. Even if they sent out the warning letter immediately perhaps it would be useful.

    The passbook accounts are the main problem, since you don't get updates unless you go into the bank and specifically ask for it.

    If anyone is administrating probate, I would recommend not distributing the estate (or not all of it) until at least 3 months has passed if the DWP is involved!
  • John_Pierpoint
    John_Pierpoint Posts: 8,391
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    I did not distribute "All" of the estate of "Mr Dog" for over two years - because there were still ongoing "issues".
    [Even now three years later, it would not surprise me if something else turned up, like his sister's unclaimed life insurance policy (worth £25):D].

    If its simple then it can be sorted out in three months, but unless you know the financial affairs of the elderly person intimately, it is like a garden, expect the unexpected to pop up as the seasons progress.
    Those investments that do not pay an annual dividend of some sort need particular care - I found a wad of mum's savings certificates hidden behind the gas meter.
  • cepheus
    cepheus Posts: 20,053 Forumite
    The DWP rang me up today and explained why the procedure takes 2 months, usual stuff writing to bank instead of executor etc. Anyway they said considering I had already distributed it they would write it off. Wasn't expecting that.
  • John_Pierpoint
    John_Pierpoint Posts: 8,391
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    edited 21 June 2012 at 12:39PM
    Writing to the address of the deceased after the house has been sold in reply to a letter from the executor is a clever trick too.

    As for your write off:
    I'm going to write to my MP. How dare they be so cavalier with tax payer's money:mad:

    :D
  • moneysavvy35
    moneysavvy35 Posts: 421
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    Hello

    My Grandad has been diagnosed with cancer and feels he should put his finances in order.

    Cut a long story short he is married, but his wife is ripping him off left right and centre :mad:. To that end he wants to make a will so she dosen't get every single thing. Which she will try to grab!!

    He hasn't really got anything as such. He has a council house - not a mortgage, dosen't own his own business. Its more personal effects (items of jewlry) and (I think around £10,000.)savings.

    He has already told me she will be entitled to a widows pension and also she will get some of his pension payments that he paid into privately.

    He has 2 sons and as petty as it may sound - he wants household appliances/furniture to go to them, if he list those in a will can go they automatically go to them, or is it because its in a house he and his wife share she can keep them?

    My grandad has asked me to be a witness/executor but I thought as I am a blood relative I can't get involved? Any advice on the above please. Thanks in advance...
  • Hovel_lady
    Hovel_lady Posts: 4,291 Forumite
    Hello

    My Grandad has been diagnosed with cancer and feels he should put his finances in order.

    Cut a long story short he is married, but his wife is ripping him off left right and centre :mad:. To that end he wants to make a will so she dosen't get every single thing. Which she will try to grab!!

    He hasn't really got anything as such. He has a council house - not a mortgage, dosen't own his own business. Its more personal effects (items of jewlry) and (I think around £10,000.)savings.

    He has already told me she will be entitled to a widows pension and also she will get some of his pension payments that he paid into privately.

    He has 2 sons and as petty as it may sound - he wants household appliances/furniture to go to them, if he list those in a will can go they automatically go to them, or is it because its in a house he and his wife share she can keep them?

    My grandad has asked me to be a witness/executor but I thought as I am a blood relative I can't get involved? Any advice on the above please. Thanks in advance...
    You can't be a witness to a will in which you are a beneficiary but you can be an executor to a will in which you are a beneficiary.
  • Mojisola
    Mojisola Posts: 35,551
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    My Grandad has been diagnosed with cancer and feels he should put his finances in order.

    Cut a long story short he is married, but his wife is ripping him off left right and centre :mad:. To that end he wants to make a will so she dosen't get every single thing. Which she will try to grab!!

    He hasn't really got anything as such. He has a council house - not a mortgage, dosen't own his own business. Its more personal effects (items of jewlry) and (I think around £10,000.)savings.

    He has already told me she will be entitled to a widows pension and also she will get some of his pension payments that he paid into privately.

    He has 2 sons and as petty as it may sound - he wants household appliances/furniture to go to them, if he list those in a will can go they automatically go to them, or is it because its in a house he and his wife share she can keep them?

    Presumably the household goods were bought and used by the couple. He can't give them away. If he put it in the will, she would probably challenge it and succeed.

    If the jewelry is his, he can give it away now while he is alive to save arguments over the will. He could give the recipients a letter stating that he is giving them the items to prevent any claims of theft after his death. If he's talking about things he bought his wife, he can't give them away or leave them to someone else.
  • John_Pierpoint
    John_Pierpoint Posts: 8,391
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    Hovel_lady wrote: »
    You can't be a witness to a will in which you are a beneficiary but you can be an executor to a will in which you are a beneficiary.

    I don't know if this counts as pedantic posting of the year but here goes:
    I think it is the other way round:

    You can't be a beneficiary to a will in which you are a witness.

    In other words the will could still be legal but the clause in the will leaving stuff to the witness would not be.

    Beware of getting involved in sad little end of life power plays over possessions of little actual value - the bitterness in the case of "I was always promised the etching of "crab boats in the sunset" hanging in the hall"; tends to develop a life of its own out of a proportion to its nominal value in the grand scheme of things.
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