Deceased Estates Notice

getmore4less

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

For land transactions claimants normally have 12 - 15 years in which to come forward,
ordinary creditors have 6 years and dependants 6 months.
The notice in the London gazette and a local newspaper cuts the time for creditors down to 2 months (in practice 3 months because of delays in getting the mail and publishing the notice).

[All I got was a few coffin chasers trying to do a cheap deal on the house - but I will offer a cup of tea to anyone, liabilities as far as the land goes are usually registered and at the risk of the purchaser.]

It does not do that, any debts do not go away.
It only protect the executor in a very specific way.

http://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/Geo5/15-16/19/section/27

The benifitiaries can still be chased.

John_Pierpoint

The creditor belatedly awakens - what can he discover?

A creditor, failing to realise that a debtor has died, does what to get in touch with the now dispersed funds, with a view to reclaiming his unsecured debt ?

He can send off a modest fee and get the names of the executors/administrators, plus a copy of the will if their is one.

The will says something along the lines of:

I appoint my son John Smith and my daughter Janet Smith to be my joint executors, if either of these two children are unable to act I then appoint my nephew Alexander Smith as substitute executor..............tax .......bequest.....
painting...........
I leave the sum of £50,000 to the retired race horse charity.........

........two thirds of the residues of my estate is to be distributed to my children in equal shares .
........one third of my estate residue is to be distributed in equal shares to those of my grandchildren being alive at my death............

By the time probate is granted and the estate distributed Janet Smith has become Janet Jones. Alexander Smith is living and working in Dubai. The house has been sold. The four children and eight grandchildren, but for two who are under age, have received their inheritance.
Several others have received their bequests and any IHT has been settled.

This situation has never happened to me; but how does the creditor now find out enough information to get in touch with the beneficiaries of the will and find their postal addresses?

As in this example there at least 13 substantial beneficiaries of let us say a £500,00 estate.

Who would be obliged or likely to cooperate with the creditor.

Once upon a time I bought a repossession from a mortgagee and for the first couple of years I got a shoal of creditors letters and a couple of visits from men in big boots. Understandably, I was not prepared to get involved in their a private quarrel with the previous owner, who had "done a runner".

dzug1

John_Pierpoint wrote: »

The creditor belatedly awakens - what can he discover?

A creditor, failing to realise that a debtor has died, does what to get in touch with the now dispersed funds, with a view to reclaiming his unsecured debt ?

He can send off a modest fee and get the names of the executors/administrators, plus a copy of the will if there is one.

snip snip

Um yes - but this is an extreme case where the practicalities get in the way

There can equally be simple cases where they don't

securityguy

dzug1 wrote: »

Um yes - but this is an extreme case where the practicalities get in the way

There can equally be simple cases where they don't

It would be interesting to learn the details of a real-life case where a beneficiary has been pursued, with anything approaching a chance of success, by a creditor of a properly wound-up estate.

I simply can't believe that a court would make, still less enforce, a judgement against someone who received a twenty grand inheritance and spent it on a holiday and a new car, or paying off student debt, or whatever. Every example I can find is solicitors warning in dark tones that such things might happen and therefore it's important to pay for their services, which isn't _quite_ evidence.

John_Pierpoint

My feeling is that the legal profession negotiated that clause into the interwar bill to protect its position. ie able to wind up an estate quickly without too much fear of any comeback - presumably getting extra money out of a beneficiary would make a divorced wife, trying to get an increase in alimony, relatively simple ?

When my mother died, she had been receiving a fairly small annual annuity from an individual; but I had no address so I wrote to him via his bank account.
The letter must have been received as the cheque stopped coming; I then reconciled the payments and discovered she had been underpaid and going back 6 years came to a figure well into three figures.

Funny thing my second letter was ignored.

I then had to make the decision on how much I was prepared to spend on behalf of the state trying to reclaim this money and made the executive decision that the costs were likely to be greater that any possible reward and gave up.

I think most debt recovery companies, just like most local authorities faced with trusts and "deprivation of assets", would also give up.