recovery from estates

avarae

when I informed them when he died nothing was said then and this is the first letter i have had from them.

nannytone_2

you have been given the right advice.

you can moan and complain about the way they left it this long, from now til kingdom come but it will make no difference.

if money is owed then it will have to be paid

missapril75

Don't panic!

When a death is notified and a claim closed, the capital declared during the claim is registered

When the estate is known and it's more than the capital registered it needs to be checked.

BUT

Most commonly, the reason the estate is more than the capital declared is because of the value of the home lived in and that value is disregarded for benefits.

You mentioned two accounts of £5000 each. If they were declared properly and there were no other accounts, the estate is only more than £10000 because of the house.

Once that's established, that's it and there would be no claim.

There are other threads where this is covered if you want to look a bit more.

grummps

avarae wrote: »

my dad passed away in march and at the time.. of his death he was in reciept of pension credit and attendance allowance.He had £5.000 ISA and £5.000 currant account his house was valued at £35,000 but he owed 24,000,I sold the house for £27,000.

I am feeling a bit confused and upset because I have had a letter today from the deptartment for work and pensions Recovery from estates wanting to compare the details of the estate against those held at the time benefit was paid.

what was left of the estate as now been shared amongest the grandchildren. I have sent the form back to them but I am worried what to do next

Are you suggesting that the estate was wound up before ensuring that there were no debts in the estate that required settling?

Did you not place a notice in a local paper and the London Gazette giving creditors notice that the estate is ready to be wound up?

I'm sorry, but whoever administered the estate is personally liable for any debts that are not paid out of the estate.
The beneficiaries are under no obligation to hand a 1p back and the Administrator/Executor has a duty to inform them of the mistake and that they are not obliged to co-operate !

The Administrator/Executor c****d up big time!!

This could cost them big time.

zagfles

If he was living in the house and his other capital was only £10k then you won't have a problem, PC has a disregard of £10k and AA isn't means tested.

antrobus

nannytone wrote: »

a debt to the 'state' has no time limitations, and they can recover it at any time.

That's not correct I'm afraid. Whilst 'debts due to the state' in respect of taxes and duties are not subject to the Limitations Act 1980, 'debts due to state' in respect of benefits are, and therefore do become statute barred. (As far as England and Wales are concerned.)

fira

I have some sympathy for avarae because this almost happened to me. It would have been a difficult time and you just want to get it all tidied up. Like folks here I agree though that you should ingather that money.

My mother died with savings of around £7000 and was receiving state pension and Pension Credit. There were no other assets apart from furniture (she rented her home from the council).

There was no Will but as the oldest the responsibly of sorting it all was passed to me by everybody else! Then, the arguments started amongst my family. I luckily hadn’t distributed the money until we could all agree.

Close to four months after her death a letter was sent to me by Recoveries from Estates Scotland. It told me not to distribute anything from the estate as they had 6 months to lodge a claim. When I called them I was politely but firmly told they had already asked the Pension Service to send them copies of my mother’s application for Pension Credit and they would get back to me when it was received and assessed. They said they needed to know what savings she had declared at that time i.e. if she had ‘mistakenly’ declared less when she claimed PC (they were always very diplomatic with words used!). I was advised that, if they needed to, they’d obtain copies of bank statements direct from RBS.

It took a good few months before I received a latter advising me that there would be no claim and I could distribute the estate.

I write this only because I perhaps would have done what the original enquirer here did, had the family arguments not happened. Having never dealt with someone’s estate before I did not have a clue about the correct process and it taught me a valuable lesson i.e. get advice from those that know e.g. CAB or a solicitor.

transient

Cor a few have been a bit harsh to the OP. I can see how she would not expect this letter from the DWP.

dseventy

transient wrote: »

Cor a few have been a bit harsh to the OP. I can see how she would not expect this letter from the DWP.

I got the impression the OP wanted advice not sympathy?

We can all give lots of sympathy but that does not help in the situation the OP finds themselves in.

(Or am I being harsh again?)

D70