London Gazette Notice question

MartinVF

Hello,

My son in law died suddenly in August 2013.

He left a will leaving all his net estate to his widow.

I was Executor and paid off the few debts involved and then gave the Widow the balance of cash when Probate was settled late last year.

A local lawyer was asked to put a Statutory Notice in the London Gazette & a local newspaper in November 2013 giving a cut-off date of Feb 2014 for any unknown debts to be declared.

Last week I got a letter from a Debt Recovery company that had purchased a credit card debt of £15,000 and demanded to be paid from the estate.

The widow was ashamed of her husband's debt and was worried it would affect the Families Name .

Because her Husband's Family did not approve of Credit Cards she had not informed me or the Family of this debt and had tried to pay it off but failed to agree a settlement figure .The Credit Card Company had refused an offer of 75%.

I have had no contact from the Credit Card company or the Debt Recovery company until this demand arrived last week.

As I was unaware of this debt until last week am I covered by the newspaper Statutory Notices last year?

Any advice gratefully received

Thanks
MF

TonyMMM

So long as you had no knowledge of the debt before placing the notices, and that they did not contact you before the cut off date, then I believe that you personally, as executor, have no liability.

But, my understanding is that doesn't stop them pursuing the debt from the estate via the beneficiaries.

Was there enough distributed to the beneficiaries to have settled this debt ?

Yorkshireman99

MartinVF wrote: »

Hello,

My son in law died suddenly in August 2013.

He left a will leaving all his net estate to his widow.

I was Executor and paid off the few debts involved and then gave the Widow the balance of cash when Probate was settled late last year.

A local lawyer was asked to put a Statutory Notice in the London Gazette & a local newspaper in November 2013 giving a cut-off date of Feb 2014 for any unknown debts to be declared.

Last week I got a letter from a Debt Recovery company that had purchased a credit card debt of £15,000 and demanded to be paid from the estate.

The widow was ashamed of her husband's debt and was worried it would affect the Families Name .

Because her Husband's Family did not approve of Credit Cards she had not informed me or the Family of this debt and had tried to pay it off but failed to agree a settlement figure .The Credit Card Company had refused an offer of 75%.

I have had no contact from the Credit Card company or the Debt Recovery company until this demand arrived last week.

As I was unaware of this debt until last week am I covered by the newspaper Statutory Notices last year?

Any advice gratefully received

Thanks
MF

The whole purpose of the statutory notice is to bar any debts not notified by the due date. Since the debt was not notified you as executor are not liable. However the company might try and pursue the sole beneficiary but I am not sure they will succeed.

tomtontom

Normally I would agree that debts not notified to you within two months of the Gazette cannot be pursued, but I wonder if the beneficiary's knowledge of the debt has a bearing on this. I would take legal advice - this is not as clear cut as it may appear.

TonyMMM

The notice is to protect the executor from a potential personal liability, it doesn't automatically bar or cancel any debts that may be owing at the time of death.

This law firm have a fairly straightforward guide ..

http://www.blakemorgan.co.uk/training-knowledge/guides/2014/06/21/client-guide-statutory-notices/

getmore4less

An active credit card debt is not usually an unknown debt as they send statements and there is usualy a Direct debit/payment set up.

Why did you not know about this debt?

Yorkshireman99

getmore4less wrote: »

An active credit card debt is not usually an unknown debt as they send statements and there is usualy a Direct debit/payment set up.

Why did you not know about this debt?

It seems the widow deliberately concealed the debt from the executor. If this is so it is hard to see how the executor can be liable.

getmore4less

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

It seems the widow deliberately concealed the debt from the executor. If this is so it is hard to see how the executor can be liable.

Lack of due diligence,

You should review the known accounts looking for things like payments out, transfers, incoming money.
(should go back 7 years but most don't/can't)

There may or not be be evidence that this is a debt that should have been known about.

Keep_pedalling

getmore4less wrote: »

An active credit card debt is not usually an unknown debt as they send statements and there is usualy a Direct debit/payment set up.

Why did you not know about this debt?

The payments may well have come out of a joint account, which would not be part of the estate. This begs the question should an executor delve into such accounts? and if so what do they do if the surviving account owner will not give access to what is now their personal account.

Yorkshireman99

getmore4less wrote: »

Lack of due diligence,

You should review the known accounts looking for things like payments out, transfers, incoming money.
(should go back 7 years but most don't/can't)

There may or not be be evidence that this is a debt that should have been known about.

So are you saying an executor should forensically examine the previous six or seven year's bank accounts of the deceased? In many cases they would not be available and if the deceased' family deliberately decieve the executor, as seems to have happened in this case, then it is hard to see that the court would find the executor at fault. I would suggest that an executor only has to apply reasonable care but cannot be expected to try and uncover deliberate fraud of this type.