Mother gifted car 6 weeks before death to sibling and there is no money for funeral

Steel_2

jpwhittle wrote: »

The debt should die with your mum, thats what happened when my grandad died in the summer, he had racked up loads of debts with his daughter but the ones in his name died with him, and there is a funeral grant you can get to help towards the cost, i dont know quite what its called but it is there for situations such as this.

I thought that debt don't necessarily die when someone dies. The executors have to pay the debts using the money that is in the deceased's estate. Only if they die insolvent do the debts get written off.

At the top of this board is a sticky with a thread called: "what to do when someone dies" (or soemthing like that). It will have lots of ino about the one off payment that you can put towards the funeral and who can claim it.

Mojisola

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

I can't see why a solicitor would not change the will of a terminally ill person. Obviously they'd have to check first that the person was still of sound mind, knew and understood what they were doing, and was not being pressurised to make the change. But absolutely no reason not to do it, ever, just because someone knows they're dying.

When I was rushed into hospital as an emergency and needed an operation, the doctor who brought the forms for me to sign checked whether I had been given the prescribed morphine. He said that if I had, I wouldn't be considered fit to give my agreement to the operation. Don't solicitors make some kind of check - a terminally ill person on high doses of morphine could make all kinds of irrational decisions.

jpwhittle

Steel wrote: »

I thought that debt don't necessarily die when someone dies. The executors have to pay the debts using the money that is in the deceased's estate. Only if they die insolvent do the debts get written off.

At the top of this board is a sticky with a thread called: "what to do when someone dies" (or soemthing like that). It will have lots of ino about the one off payment that you can put towards the funeral and who can claim it.

I think if you have an estate of some kind then what can be paid of will be wich means no inheritance untill its all paid of from what i understand, but my grandad had no estate at all, we didnt find out how bad things were untill he died, then the only thing that he did have (a car) was given to someone so the bailiffs wouldnt take it, much to the annoyance of several members of the family

Savvy_Sue

Mojisola wrote: »

When I was rushed into hospital as an emergency and needed an operation, the doctor who brought the forms for me to sign checked whether I had been given the prescribed morphine. He said that if I had, I wouldn't be considered fit to give my agreement to the operation.

Gosh, never heard of that one! Would they have operated without your consent (got someone else's, presumably) if you HAD had the morphine?

Mojisola wrote: »

Don't solicitors make some kind of check - a terminally ill person on high doses of morphine could make all kinds of irrational decisions.

I don't know what checks a solicitor should make in such a situation. I am, however, sure that there is no automatic ban on making a will when you're terminally ill.

Actually, I'd say that a solicitor should always check that the person knows and understands both what they are doing, and its implications. I know that when my parents wrote their wills, the solicitor explained the effect of one clause meant that some of their grandchildren could miss out if one of us died before my parents. My mother insisted that that's what she wanted to do: her argument being that she doesn't see that much of her grandchildren. Since it's hardly the fault of her grandchildren (and not really our fault either in some cases!) I find this unpleasant, and I know that at least one of my childless siblings will want to go for a deed of variation if that happens.

However, my mother fully understands what that clause of her will means, and that's the solicitor's job done.

Mojisola

Savvy_Sue wrote: »

Gosh, never heard of that one! Would they have operated without your consent (got someone else's, presumably) if you HAD had the morphine?

As my husband was there, they would have asked him to sign the forms. Otherwise, it would have gone ahead as a necessary emergency. I think they have to cover themselves against a patient saying later that they couldn't understand what they were signing because of the drugs.

ska_lover

This is a very sad thread, I am sorry to hear of your loss OP.

ska_lover

Grief does do funny things to people. In my family I have known of an entire house to be cleared out of an elderly relatives life time possessions as she wasn't expected to survive- and in fact the woman made a recovery and had to go into an elderly peoples home.