Unpaid Nursing Home fees after death - who is liable?

ratty67

Apologies for not being clearer with my second question.

We located an uncashed dividend cheque which lead to the discovery of Centrica shares.

The dividend cheque was in joint names of the deceased lady AND her late husband. DH telephoned the company who had no idea the gentleman had passed away over four years ago!

The bumf they sent us indicated that they want a copies of his death cert and will and that the shares can only be transferred to his next of kin. Fair enough but now she's passed away!

Does this mean they can now be sold? Once DH has registered both deaths with them obviously!

ratty67

Relating to my first question we have discovered today via a very interesting conversation that the daughter applied for (and I assume was granted) Letters of Administration following her Fathers death after claiming his died without a will, clearly in order to benefit from his estate.

We have also discovered that she is now attempting the same thing again. She has already made the claim to one of her Mum's insurance policies and they naturally want to see a copy of the Will asap. Wouldn't shock me if she's already applying for Letters of Administration in this case too.

She makes no bones about the fact she wishes DH to step aside as executor. Easy to see why really. If DH did stand down, the next of kin would then have the right to take over. Guess who that would be? :rolleyes:

localhero

I think your husband should contact the probate registry to let them know that he will be applying for probate in due course and perhaps lodge the Will with them.

With regard to the dividend cheques in joint names, the company's share registrars are incorrect in what they say. These dividends will form part of the estate of the survivor of them and so the executor (ie your husband) should once he gets the grant of probate, request that a cheque is raised to the 'executors of....' Your husband should then obviously divide the proceeds according to the Will.

Your husband has already started the task as an executor, and has 'intermeddled' in the estate and so cannot renounce even if he wanted to. He could have of course at the outset allocated the role to anyone (including a solicitor) of his choosing rather than allow the daughter to assume the responsibility by default.

Don't be bullied by the daughter. Like others have indicated - she's obviously getting a bit worried.

Savvy_Sue

Given what you have found out, how much would it cost for a solicitor to send a letter on behalf of the estate pointing out that there is a will, for which your DH is executor, and that any further attempt to obtain LofA claiming that she died intestate will be reported to police as fraud.

You don't have to ask the solicitors to do anything else. That might be enough to get her to back off.

monkeyspanner

The daughter is now in a precarious situation she has effectively confirmed her knowledge there is a will by requesting payment of the funeral expenses via the solicitor that held the will. To now try to claim that her mother died intestate to obtain assets is surely fraudulent. There is a possibility I guess that she may be the named beneficiary of the insurance policy in which case all she would need is a copy of the death certificate to properly claim the proceeds of the insurance policy.

Is there a chance that her father did leave a will and she decided to ignore it?

I think as localhero suggests I would contact the probate office and start the process of getting probate forms and see if there is a process by which they can prevent the daughter applying for letters of administration. It was made quite clear (in a half joke/half serious way) when I last obtained probate that false declarations would result in legal action. I think they take this kind of thing seriously.

localhero

monkeyspanner wrote:

I think as localhero suggests I would contact the probate office and start the process of getting probate forms and see if there is a process by which they can prevent the daughter applying for letters of administration.

There is - you lodge the Will with them. Accompanied with a letter expressing concerns and proof that she knows about the Will. The daughter then applies for letters of administration, and signs the legal declaration that there's no Will - then bingo.

ratty67

Thank you one and all.

DH is going to mull over advice given and will most certainly be telephoning both the probate office and the solicitor first thing Monday morning.

Here's hoping for a peaceful weekend!

Mrsmoneypenny

Hello ratty67
I am checking this thread every day, it cant be much fun for you and your other half, but it makes very interesting reading.

This kind of thing must happen all too often and I hope you get to the bottom of what has really gone on and that there are severe penalties for the daughter.

I get the impression from you posts that you have the patience to see this through to the end, well done. I have been executor of a will and it can be a little tricky/time consuming, however, when it all falls into place its a great feeling.

If any wrong has been done by the daughter it will catch up with her eventually, so make sure that she has nothing to point the finger at you for. Take your time, get the right advice and make considered decisions when you feel it is the right time. Get everything in writing.

Keep up the good work and keep us up to date.

meerkat2007

monkeyspanner wrote: »

Hi Ratty

Well done on the progress you have made so far.

If I have understood your posts you can see the lady's pension payments up to 2005 and then there is no record of payments into any account that you have records for. This means that the DWP were instructed to change bank payment instructions. This is interesting as when we were dealing with my MIL's finances DWP would not even talk to us without MIL giving permission on each telephone conversation and this continued until my wife had POA for her Mum. So how were the bank instructions changed? The only assumption I can make is that DWP thought they had proper new instructions from the lady. If this is the case then they should be able to provide this information even if you just say you are trying to trace the bank account. However, it seems entirely possible that a change of bank instruction was improperly made or that the lady was persuaded to sign a change without realising what she was doing.

If relatives are getting upset about checking bank statements I would say your DH (and you of course) are getting unpleasantly close to the truth and someone is getting worried.

Hi Ratty

I've been reading your thread with interest this morning, and I would like to congratulate you and DH on how you are handling a very difficult situation.

With regard to the DWP pension payments, I don't know if this will help or not, but when I applied for Attendance Allowance on my mother's behalf, one of the reasons I stipulated was that she is incapable of managing her own financial affairs.

This being the case, the DWP would not grant Attendance Allowance until they paid us a visit to ensure that I was a fit and proper person to handle my mother's finances, and that my mother was nominating me to be her representative in dealings with the DWP of her own free will, and in the full knowledge of all the implications of nominating me as her representative. Now all communication from the DWP comes addressed to me regarding her.

Also, when the DWP person visited us, we could nominate any bank account we wanted to receive the AA, so we decided on the basic account from where we pay the household bills. The account is in my sole name, but I maintain a detailed spreadsheet splitting the account between household expenses and what belongs to my mother.

The knock-on effect is that her weekly pension credits are now also paid into that account, although her 4-weekly state pension has remained with her own account. Having set up the relationship with the DWP, I expect that it will be relatively easy to get her state pension paid into the household account as well, once she's ready for that to happen (actually, she's ready already, but I haven't got round to it yet).

Sorry for the waffle, but the point I am trying to get to is that the daughter may have set up the same relationship with the DWP and arranged for her mother's pension to be paid into an account of hers, which could be why the pension payments disappeared without a trace in 2005.

Hope this helps, and good luck with your endeavours! Great job so far!

sandraroffey

i too am checking this thread on a daily basis. it should be made into a book, its rivetting reading and cant wait to hear the outcome of it all, although i think that is going to take some time.