money owed by deceased mum???

bumblebee87_2

my mum passed away in april and owed just under £100 to anglian water from a flat she had lived in 2 years before she died. she only found out about this a few months before she died, as she had never missed a payment in the time she lived there.

the day before she died, she had agreed to pay installments to them, which obviously didnt happen. my dad is now getting letters about this debt, anglian water know mum is dead, the letter was addressed to Mrs XXXX XXXXX deceased C/O Mr XXXX XXXX my parents were divorced and my mum remarried.

she left no assets/cash, basically no estate. can they still chase this debt and who should they be chasing for it? she lived alone in this flat

sorry if this is in the wrong place

ed123_2

....I would take the letter to the press....I think they would be v interested, talk about insensitive!! Basically the person's estate ie assets & liabilities are offset against each other as set out in their will. If there is no will the estates is settled as per set laws/procedures. If your dad had not signed the agreement with the water company he should tell them to swival on it!!!

Magentasue

When my mum died, we were in a similar position. We (my brothers and I) wrote to all creditors (incl Anglian Water) with a copy of the death certificate saying there were no assets and there were creditors with accounts totalling £X. As there were no assets and no estate, there were no executors and we were just informing them of her death etc.

There is no way the likes of a utility company would know where my father lives - like your parents, mine were separated and had lived apart for some time. Although my father could have claimed some widower's benefits, he was no more responsible for my mum's debts than we were.

The utilities etc. have to try to recover the debt and will try to lodge the account with the executor - you have to inform them if one is appointed, I think. If there is no executor and no estate, they have to say they've tried and failed and then write the debt off.

bumblebee87_2

thats the other thing, as we are awaiting an inquest, we dont have a full death certificate, just the 'interim certificate of fact of death' from the coroner, they have had a copy of this and are still asking for the death certificate. theyre ruddy useless

so basically, as she had nothing (and i mean nothing, we went shopping the day before she died and she spent up, wow thats wierd now i think about it) and there were no executors as she had no will, they cant chase the debt?

Magentasue

I would type up a letter explaining about the interim certificate and send a copy to anyone chasing. The problem is your letter gets dealt with by someone who sends out a standard reply.

If there is no estate, they will give up. Looking at it from their point of view, anyone could say that even if it weren't true. They have to have a paper trail showing they made efforts to check the facts and recover debts where possible.

We drew up a list of account balances (there were two current accounts in credit and the bank released the money to the funeral directors as we said that's what she wanted to use the money for) and debts. We said she lived in a council house, had no car or possessions of value and, therefore, there was no estate. The only companies that pursued this for months, were mail order catalogue firms.

Several times when I answered the phone, I was asked how much I would be prepared to pay immediately and what arrangement I could make to settle a debt. Have to say the utilities were all OK - they just made up an account to the date of death and then wrote it off once they received the death certificate.

I've dealt with Anglian Water on the phone and found them helpful - it's a UK call centre and the person I spoke to knew what they were talking about so may be worth a call. More than can be said for BT.

dzug1

ed123 wrote: »

....I would take the letter to the press....I think they would be v interested, talk about insensitive!! Basically the person's estate ie assets & liabilities are offset against each other as set out in their will. If there is no will the estates is settled as per set laws/procedures. If your dad had not signed the agreement with the water company he should tell them to swival on it!!!

Oh come off it - it's not at all insensitive, it's just normal procedure. They have to be told the situation, formally, then as magentasue says, they will write off the debt. They can't just assume it.

Debt_Free_Chick

The interim certificate should be just as good as the Death Certificate - after all, it identifies the body. Sorry to be so blunt, but I want to expose how silly they're being as it's only the cause of death that's currently unclear, not the death itself!

I rather suspect that they have a procedure which states "get the Death Certificate" rather than "get the Death Certificate or the Coroner's Interim Certificate of Death".

Torby

You cannot be responsible for the debt unless it was jointly signed for, I unfortunately remember a time when when if the person named on the "bill" died, that the spouse or next family member may have been contacted and it may have been suggested that "it would be a shame that they went to the grave with money (debt) against their good name, something that was frowned upon by the previous hard working generation"....I personally did not adopt that approach, the utility firm I worked for did not take that approach...but unfortunately some "cowboys" in credit control took that approach to get a good clearup rate....sad but true

Cardew

I think dzug in post #6 has got it right.

They cannot accept someone is dead simply because they have a phone call.

The official position with any debt is that it passes to the deceased's estate.

However, once formal notification of death has been received the debt will be written off in these circumstances.

Debt_Free_Chick

Cardew wrote: »

I think dzug in post #6 has got it right.

They cannot accept someone is dead simply because they have a phone call.

The official position with any debt is that it passes to the deceased's estate.

However, once formal notification of death has been received the debt will be written off in these circumstances.

OK - I'll make no apologies for being blunt, again ... but ....


A Coroner (who is appointed by the Court) certifying that "this is xyz's body, dead" is not "formal notication of death"?

bumblebee87_2

they have had a copy of the interim certificate! aswell as several phone calls from my step dad, i think he got very irate with them (understandably) and now they are off his case and onto my dad instead.

anglian water have had the proof that mum is dead, i dont see that there is much more that we can do. all i needed to know was if this debt was enforcable against anyone else, and it sounds like its not