Suicide - what happens to debt?

GuernseyGirl_3

I'm looking for some advice please.

Sadly my FIL committed suicide a few weeks ago. He had a store card with about £8000 of debt on it in his name only. My MIL spoke to the store who told her the debt would be written off (much to her relief). However, she has now been told that she has to pay it as he didn't have any insurance (or something) on the card.

Can anyone tell me if this is true - surely the debt was his not hers???

(She's been to CAB but seems like her local one is not being too helpful).

skylight

All debts will be paid from the deceased's estate. If there is no estate, then the debts cannot be paid and are not paid. They "die" off, rather than be actually written off.

Whomever is dealing with his will or estate needs to deal with his debts too.

Your MIL is not liable to pay his debts off. Sadly, many creditors use this emotional time to try to convince you otherwise. All your FILs assets will belong to his estate now. So if he co-owed a property with MIL, then his share is his asset, which goes into his estate and then pays offs the debts. If your FIL owed nothing at all (nothing, no property, car etc) then there is no estate.

asandwhen

This depends on if your FIL left any money to your mother. Does he own the property which they live or is it rented?

GreyPilgrim

No help to offer. Just condolences

NathRSW

Hi there, Condolences on the loss

We have had a simular situation in my family.

My Step dad committed suicide and because he was married to my mum any debts outstanding came out of his estate. As he did not have much of an estate my mum has ended up having to pay a credit card debt off her self.

We managed to agree with the Credit card company to pay installments of £100 a month and to freeze the interest so if you do have to pay for it do argue your point in trying to get a monthly affordable payment setup

Luckily for us my step dad had over 20k in loans but fortunely they had payment protection and were written off with no questions asked

NathRSW

By the way in our family situation my step dad didn’t have any property in his name, He lived with my Mother who owned the property outright before they met. The only form of estate he had was his current bank balance.

Our solicitor wrote to the credit card company a letter hoping that they would write the debt off but it the end we managed to agree the £100 Direct debit

Ms-Pacman

im surprised at that. nathrsw as the solicitor should have known that as the debt is taken off the deceased estate / available funds. no one else should be paying off the debt. i suggest you get another solicitor!!!!!

asandwhen

I think that it was because the mum owned her own house and they were married so there was an estate for the debts to be paid off.

Kavanne

NathRSW wrote: »

By the way in our family situation my step dad didn’t have any property in his name, He lived with my Mother who owned the property outright before they met. The only form of estate he had was his current bank balance.

Our solicitor wrote to the credit card company a letter hoping that they would write the debt off but it the end we managed to agree the £100 Direct debit

asandwhen wrote: »

I think that it was because the mum owned her own house and they were married so there was an estate for the debts to be paid off.

Sorry but what was IN his estate? did he own a car? Anything valuable? If not, then HE had no estate. Just because your mother owns a house herself doesn't mean she should be paying off his debt. I imagine all the CC could claim is the money that was in his current account.

GuernseyGirl_3

My MIL & FIL live in a rented house. He did have a car but I believe that was on HP - I think its been sold to pay off the rest of what was owed on it.

It is difficult for us to offer any real help to go through things with my MIL as we don't live close and the other children, unfortunately, don't seem to be doing much to help with the financial aspects - my MIL also has debts which are becoming a problem and I'm not sure anyone really knows what to do to help - a bit of burying heads in sand unfortunately.

Are there any other places apart from CAB where she could go for advice on the best way to deal with this? I believe MIL's debts are a loan and a credit card and may now be in the hands of debt collectors.

Kavanne

Consumer credit counselling service: http://www.cccs.co.uk/

I think there are some others too. But your MIL shouldn't be scared into signing up to anything to pay back your FILs debts.