Worried about Dad's Estate and debt

sydneybean

I am hoping someone can help with a few questions about my dad's estate.

My dad passed away 5 weeks ago, my mum and dad were still married but lived apart (no major fallouts they just couldnt live together anymore). Dad didnt leave a will.

Mum still lives in the marital home and dad rented a flat close by. When dad died there was still a small mortgage on their house which they had taken out to allow my dad to have some of the money out of the property rather than doing equity release or selling the house because mum didnt want to move and dad paid this every month.

Anyway, when i have gone through dads paperwork he also had a credit card for around 2k and a mobile phone contract for £10 a month.

I have looked on the gov websites and am still confused as to whether we have to count dads half of the house as part of his estate or whether the house just fully goes to mum.

When he died he had around £500 in his bank account. we went to the bank (Yorkshire) who said they were happy enough to just close it and put it into mums account. They then contacted us again to say they had frozen it rather than closed it which is fine.

We used the "One Call" service and have started to get bits of money back from such as council tax, tv lic, water etc along with £600 bond money from his flat. Mum has paid this into her own account as we cant put anything into dads. We have then had a call from the bank about the credit card payment and the fact that the funeral needs to be paid first.

Mum has paid for Dads funeral, flowers, wake etc from her own money and has taken the undertaker bill to the bank for them to give her the £500 towards it. But she really doesnt want to have to pay his credit card off, which to be fair to her i understand, there was a life insurance policy but even with that and the bits of other money we have got back it wont cover what she has paid out and thats not even taking into account a headstone.

I suppose my questions are;
Is she allowed to put the money we get back into her own account, we cant pay it in anywhere else.

Is the house now totally hers and not part of his estate?

Does she have to pay the credit card if it was in dads name?

Do we have to do probate?

thankfully she can cover the mortgae payments because she is entitled to some of his serps pension.

many many thanks for any advice, really dont want to have to use a solicitor if we dont need to as it will just be more money she has to pay out as i am not in a position to help her financially at the moment. x

pmlindyloo

Is the house in joint names/tenants in common? Whose name is on the mortgage?

carefullycautious

A simple answer is that after the funeral has been paid any monies left over would have to pay back any debts he owed.

Even if your mum jointly owned the property I don't think she can be made to sell the property to pay this debt.

I'm sure someone will be along soon to answer your question more fully.

Mum needs to keep receipts to prove what she has paid out already for the funeral. She would not be responsible to pay for a debt belonging to her husband unless it was in joint names.

pmlindyloo

carefullycautious wrote: »

A simple answer is that after the funeral has been paid any monies left over would have to pay back any debts he owed.

Even if your mum jointly owned the property I don't think she can be made to sell the property to pay this debt.

I'm sure someone will be along soon to answer your question more fully.

Mum needs to keep receipts to prove what she has paid out already for the funeral. She would not be responsible to pay for a debt belonging to her husband unless it was in joint names.

The reason I asked my question is because if the house was in joint names then it would pass automatically to the wife and would not form part of the estate - therefore any debts in his sole name would not have to be paid by spouse.

However, if the house was owned tenants in common then the deceased share of the house would form part of the estate and, in theory, the debt would have to be paid either by selling the house or by being paid by someone.

In this scenario - owning tenants in common- then probate would have to be applied for.

Any monies received from the deceased should have been put in a separate bank account so that records of these can be kept.

Once we know which scenario it is then more help could be offered.

g6jns_2

sydneybean wrote: »

I am hoping someone can help with a few questions about my dad's estate.

My dad passed away 5 weeks ago, my mum and dad were still married but lived apart (no major fallouts they just couldnt live together anymore). Dad didnt leave a will.

Mum still lives in the marital home and dad rented a flat close by. When dad died there was still a small mortgage on their house which they had taken out to allow my dad to have some of the money out of the property rather than doing equity release or selling the house because mum didnt want to move and dad paid this every month.

Anyway, when i have gone through dads paperwork he also had a credit card for around 2k and a mobile phone contract for £10 a month.

I have looked on the gov websites and am still confused as to whether we have to count dads half of the house as part of his estate or whether the house just fully goes to mum.

When he died he had around £500 in his bank account. we went to the bank (Yorkshire) who said they were happy enough to just close it and put it into mums account. They then contacted us again to say they had frozen it rather than closed it which is fine.

We used the "One Call" service and have started to get bits of money back from such as council tax, tv lic, water etc along with £600 bond money from his flat. Mum has paid this into her own account as we cant put anything into dads. We have then had a call from the bank about the credit card payment and the fact that the funeral needs to be paid first.

Mum has paid for Dads funeral, flowers, wake etc from her own money and has taken the undertaker bill to the bank for them to give her the £500 towards it. But she really doesnt want to have to pay his credit card off, which to be fair to her i understand, there was a life insurance policy but even with that and the bits of other money we have got back it wont cover what she has paid out and thats not even taking into account a headstone.

I suppose my questions are;
Is she allowed to put the money we get back into her own account, we cant pay it in anywhere else.

Is the house now totally hers and not part of his estate?

Does she have to pay the credit card if it was in dads name?

Do we have to do probate?

thankfully she can cover the mortgae payments because she is entitled to some of his serps pension.

many many thanks for any advice, really dont want to have to use a solicitor if we dont need to as it will just be more money she has to pay out as i am not in a position to help her financially at the moment. x

You need to get things sorted urgently because the estate may be insolvent. The crucial point is to find the tenure of the house. If you can tell us that then further advice can be given.

Pickle29

Hi
Sorry to hear about your Dad

If you contact the land registry, for a small fee (approx £10 I think) they will be able to confirm if it is owned as joint tenants or tenants in common, which will then enable you to answer the questions about ownership of the house for your mum.
Good luck x

g6jns_2

Pickle29 wrote: »

Hi
Sorry to hear about your Dad

If you contact the land registry, for a small fee (approx £10 I think) they will be able to confirm if it is owned as joint tenants or tenants in common, which will then enable you to answer the questions about ownership of the house for your mum.
Good luck x

Unfortunately the Land Registry entry does not always tell you this. The mortgage lender should be able to though.

Crabapple

g6jns wrote: »

Unfortunately the Land Registry entry does not always tell you this. The mortgage lender should be able to though.

If it's registered land then a restriction will have been entered at the Land Registry and a copy of the registered title will tell you (although not in straightforward language!). Unregistered is more complex as there might or might not be documents dealing with the tenancy with the deeds.

Mortgage lenders don't tend to know, and don't care how the property is owned. It's a joint debt no matter how the beneficial ownership is dealt with so they are still able to chase either or both owners for the repayments if they need to.

As others have said, if it;s owned as joint tenants then there's no issue here. If it's tenants in common then that value of the house is part of the estate and Probate will be needed, plus the credit card would need to be repaid. Find out and get back to us.

g6jns_2

Crabapple wrote: »

If it's registered land then a restriction will have been entered at the Land Registry and a copy of the registered title will tell you (although not in straightforward language!). Unregistered is more complex as there might or might not be documents dealing with the tenancy with the deeds.

Mortgage lenders don't tend to know, and don't care how the property is owned. It's a joint debt no matter how the beneficial ownership is dealt with so they are still able to chase either or both owners for the repayments if they need to.

As others have said, if it;s owned as joint tenants then there's no issue here. If it's tenants in common then that value of the house is part of the estate and Probate will be needed, plus the credit card would need to be repaid. Find out and get back to us.

It may be obvious to you and I but not to the OP. They really need to get a professional to check for them. As for the mortgage lender in my experience they do know and care how the property is held. Having said that the OP needs urgent professional advice about the tenure and how they should proceed with a possibly bankrupt estate as they appear to have intermeddled in it.

sydneybean

A massive thank you to all those who have replied

I think it will be jointly owned, they bought their council house back in the 80's sometime, and we moved once about 27 years ago so i doubt very much it would be anything other than Joint (here's hoping). I have sent mum home to look at the deeds as she thinks she has them from when their mortgage was originally paid off, the extra money they took was called a homeowner loan, which is think is just another mortgage anyway.

I know the house is registered with the Land Registry as i clicked through to it from one of the government websites.

With regards to the money mum has received from dads bills etc she has used this towards the funeral and also used the life insurance, although i presume she wouldnt have had to do that and life insurance she had on dad since 1968 named her as the person taking it out on my dad. So to all intents and purposes there isnt actually any money to put into an account as she has used this to in effect pay herself back as she paid the undertakers a lovely 3.6k last week:eek:

its all so confusing! she has kept all the letters that have been sent (and actually there arent that many which is probably a reason to be thankful) Also she is also aware that there may be money to pay back on his pension and dla as we have had the letter to say he isnt owed anything but will find out if we owe them in the near future. She is quite happy to make sure that all of that is paid off and right its just the credit card!

Once i know if its joint tenants i will update more. thank you all again so much you are stars! :T

pmlindyloo

I am giving you this link to pass on to your mum so that she will know whether the property is registered as tenants in common. (Scroll down to find the wording in red)

http://www.beneficentlaw.co.uk/uploads/1/0/7/5/10755464/sample_title_register.pdf

I know when I looked I had no idea what the words meant!

Hope it's useful.