Death, Estates and creditors...

theboylard

Hi,

first post so be gentle please, apologies if not in the right section!
Ok, a relation has died recently with over £100k in debts to various card companies, finance houses, store cards and banks - nearly 30 in total.
They say you can't take it with you and he obviously borrowed heavily on the old adage!!!

He had no assets (literally - all we have that can definitely be proven to be his are 4 mobiles, it transpires that he ebay'd/pawned anything else of any value). There is a car but that is financed so they are welcome to repossess, it's an automatic anyway.

Here is the question: is a death in service benefit part of his estate and can his creditors claim on it?

There are no dependents, only a sister and father remain.

Thanks in advance for any help,

hapless.

Savvy_Sue

I am sorry for your loss. And I'm afraid I can't answer your question. If no-one else comes along to answer, I'd suggest a call to Citizens Advice Bureau on Monday. Also may be worth going to the library to get a book on dealing with someone's estate. Make sure it has a decent section on when someone dies without making a will if that seems to be the case. And a decent section of what to do about debts!

I believe the costs of the funeral can usually be taken from the estate but that's clearly going to be tricky, so you might want to have a look on the families board for help with keeping costs low. There's several I found with this search - I hope this doesn't make me sound mean-spirited because I know people don't usually want a funeral to look cheap, but if you know what to think about it may help keep costs down.

There's almost certainly a chapter on funerals in any good book about dealing with someone's estate!

I hope this helps a little ...

Bossyboots

Have a look here http://www.thosflavell.co.uk/estates.htm which gives you some info.

You need to contact the trustees of the company's pension fund to see whether anyone was nominated to received the benefit and take it from there. It does seem though that this payment can be made without it going into the estate.

theboylard

An update for those that are interested....

Having done this myself on several occasions, I understand this - where an employer offers a death in service benefit, you are usually asked to nominate a beneficiary (although with the caveat that the administrators have a final say - if you got divorced and hadn't changed your nomination for instance) and should the worst happen, then that beneficiary is paid directly.

In this case it was the Father as the named, and he will receive payment shortly . This is not considered part of the estate.

As to the debts, some companies are being very helpful, others are being incredibly obtuse and seem to be set on a course of maximum upset!

Personally I'd like to invite them to sue his estate, just for the fun of bringing the ashes to court to defend himself

Still, some legal eagles are going to get some easy money now

Thanks for the kind words and advice, if any more crops up I'll be back.

hapless