Card Debt On Death

HD840

further to a recent previous thread re card debt at death.....
the debt dies with the person except for when there is an estate and monies can be levied against it...but what is an estate and what does it comprise.
It is obviously property but does it include home contents(which by implication are joint owned with spouse) and cars in person name.

bengal-stripe

"Estate" are all the person's assets (property, possessions, money):
http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/Death/BenefitsAndMoney/DG_10029819

simpywimpy

If a car is in sole name and there is no finance on it I doubt the credit card company would know about it. Contents I would think are the property of the other spouse automatically.

NickX

simpywimpy wrote: »

If a car is in sole name and there is no finance on it I doubt the credit card company would know about it.

This doesn't really make sense. The executors of the estate will know about the cars and in the same way the credit card company wouldn't know of valuable jewellery or antiques within the contents of the house.

If the deceased has a collection of classic Ferraris or Bentleys these could form a major part of the estate

NickX

HD840 wrote: »

It is obviously property but does it include home contents(which by implication are joint owned with spouse) and cars in person name.

Contents are not necessarily joint owned, I am thinking specifically of valuable jewellery and antiques.

Your question is basically asking how probate works and in most cases an experienced solicitor is required to assess the estate of the deceased. I suspect it is too complicated for a forum such as this.

Maybe some clever solicitors can advise

geranium72

There is a common misconception that debts like this die with you on death. However, even if all that is left is jointly owned property, (presuming by this you mean owned as joint tenants, so that the property goes automatically to the other person on death) such as contents, a house etc, then technically the estate is insolvent and without going in to too much detail the debt can be reclaimed from the joint property - although that doesn't necessarily mean a house would be sold.

As to your question as to what constitutes property for an estate - then anything that has a value including jewellery and cars. I'm not sure that if all there is left is household contents, barring anything of any real value like antiques or particularly expensive furniture, they would pursue the credit card debt but you never know.

It's actually quite complex but there are rules about how you deal with an insolvent estate and someone in this position would need legal advice.

CLAPTON

geranium72 wrote: »

There is a common misconception that debts like this die with you on death. However, even if all that is left is jointly owned property, (presuming by this you mean owned as joint tenants, so that the property goes automatically to the other person on death) such as contents, a house etc, then technically the estate is insolvent and without going in to too much detail the debt can be reclaimed from the joint property - although that doesn't necessarily mean a house would be sold.

As to your question as to what constitutes property for an estate - then anything that has a value including jewellery and cars. I'm not sure that if all there is left is household contents, barring anything of any real value like antiques or particularly expensive furniture, they would pursue the credit card debt but you never know.

It's actually quite complex but there are rules about how you deal with an insolvent estate and someone in this position would need legal advice.

If the estate is insolvent then who would pay for the legal advice?

geranium72

CLAPTON wrote: »

If the estate is insolvent then who would pay for the legal advice?

Good question! If there is truly nothing at all then there is no need for any advice and no one would act. If there is (eg as we said above by virtue of joint property) then the legal fees have priority over other creditors, otherwise it would never get sorted, if you see what I mean.

There are people who don't deal with these things at all with no issue because they don't have debts but if a creditor is pressing for money then I suppose it would have to be dealt with.