Credit Card - Death - No Will

thenudeone

McKneff wrote: »

The husband would be liable for any joint debts.

But remember - an additional cardholder on a credit card does not have a joint debt.
The main cardholder is 100% responsible for the debt on a credit card.

Shelldean

when my f-i-l died he had a credit card debt of appox £800, but he had no assets. He had a small insurance which just about covered the funeral. I wrote to Natwest with a copy of the death cert and for a while they sent a statement each month addressed to the Estate of. After about 3 mths, I called them and explained there was no estate again and the statments stopped.

EarthBoy

Torry_Quine wrote: »

Usually if an account is joint then half of the money is determined to be from each person unless there is reason to suppose otherwise.

I think that's only for tax purposes, i.e. if one of the account holders is not a tax payer and wants half the interest paid gross instead of net. However, the money in the account itself is held on a joint and several liability basis, which means that all the money belongs to both and/or either of them. So, they both have equal responsibility for the money and either of them can withdraw the full amount, unless you have given the bank instructions that both signatures are required for withdrawals.

Similarly with debts. If you have a joint loan, or mortgage, and one of you dies, the survivor still has to pay the full amount and not just half of it.

Torry_Quine

EarthBoy wrote: »

I think that's only for tax purposes, i.e. if one of the account holders is not a tax payer and wants half the interest paid gross instead of net. However, the money in the account itself is held on a joint and several liability basis, which means that all the money belongs to both and/or either of them. So, they both have equal responsibility for the money and either of them can withdraw the full amount, unless you have given the bank instructions that both signatures are required for withdrawals.

Similarly with debts. If you have a joint loan, or mortgage, and one of you dies, the survivor still has to pay the full amount and not just half of it.

That's more information than I knew. I did know about the tax implications but didn't realise that all the money is held that way.

Does that mean that money from joint accounts is not used to pay the deceased's debts as I hadn't known that.