Helping Family Member Sort Finances Post-Bereavement

xiavn

Hi there, hopefully you guys will be able to give me some idea of where to go regarding all this.

My boyfriend has recently suffered a bereavement in the family, his mum's boyfriend passed away last week, leaving his mum and sister by themselves. We live a few hours away, so travelled up the day after to try and offer a bit of support, but we can't be around regularly.

From what I understand, his mum's boyfriend handled paying most of the bills, and she has very little idea about the costs of each. When I was up there I managed to make up a list of most of the things I thought would need to be checked into / changed. However I'm worried there may be whole areas of bills/costs/etc that I don't realise exist.

So far we've got her to contact the bank, to get the joint account set up in her name only. The £600 or so overdraft has been put on hold for a few months to help her get situated.
She's contacted the right people to have his disability benefits stopped, and have herself assessed for housing and tax credit. Whilst I was there I found a bill for ~£1800 overpaid housing benefit and £500 council tax. These have been held for 30 days I believe. As far as we know he hadn't paid anything off towards these, although it's been difficult to know for sure.
There is also a debt for water that has been passed onto a debt collection agency, around £700 I think.

We've sorted the Virgin account for internet/tv/phone, and are in the process of sorting out topping up PAYG mobiles.

The gas and electricity is one of those prepayment meters, and there's around £90 on each. I'm not sure how long this would last? But we've been encouraging them to keep it topped up ongoing.

The tv licence people were the most unhelpful to contact, and a letter had to be sent off to transfer the account. We haven't been able to figure out how he was paying it (weekly, monthly?), but around £40 so far has been paid.

I've figured out when car tax is due (end of this month), and MOT (July), and the car payments have been dropped slightly each week for a few weeks to help her out too. Insurance was proving a little more difficult to track down, I managed to find out where the insurance was through, and sort out her online account, but I didn't figure out if it was all paid, or monthly.

Recently I've also had a thought that there may also be payments for stuff like tv's, mobiles, ps4, etc. Boyfriend and I think it will probably be one of those places where you pay weekly until the amount is paid off, however he needs to phone and discuss this with her.

Where do we go from here? I've read about places like stepchange, who may be able to give her some advice on budgeting and things, but I feel like we probably still don't have a very good picture of how much is coming in and out yet; would they still be useful in this situation? Are there any more areas of bills, etc, that I may have missed that might need looking into? I still live at home, so I'm worried there may be stuff that I 'm just not thinking of or aware of. I just want to help her get securely on her feet; in the past he seems to have handled all the bill paying (often through phoning up and paying stuff off), and I think they were regularly getting late charges, etc. I don't want it to be the same way again.

Sorry it's been such a long post.

sourcrates

Hi,


Ok , its important to realise here, that ANY debts that were solely in the boyfriends name, she or anyone else, will not be liable for them.
Obviously things like tv licence as you mentioned, will need to be changed over, but any credit debts, such as loans, hire purchase, credit cards, catalogue accounts, payday loans etc etc will need to be paid out of the deceased estate.


If they did not leave an estate, then the debts die with him, and no one else is responsible for paying them.


If there are accounts such as this, then give National Debtline a ring for specific advice.


Otherwise its just a case of been on the best tariff for everything, and as you say, budgeting correctly.

xiavn

sourcrates wrote: »

Hi,
Obviously things like tv licence as you mentioned, will need to be changed over, but any credit debts, such as loans, hire purchase, credit cards, catalogue accounts, payday loans etc etc will need to be paid out of the deceased estate.

Thanks for the advice! The letter for the overpayment of council tax and housing benefit appeared to be in his name, but I assume, because it would have been a joint claim, they will still be liable? I will have to get her to check the letter from the debt collection agency regarding the water.

sourcrates

xiavn wrote: »

Thanks for the advice! The letter for the overpayment of council tax and housing benefit appeared to be in his name, but I assume, because it would have been a joint claim, they will still be liable? I will have to get her to check the letter from the debt collection agency regarding the water.

Yes utility bills will need paying as they are household bills.


You cant be taken to court for a water bill debt, so just agree a payment she can afford with them.

dancingfairy

First step is to get benefits sorted and make sure she is getting everything she is entitled to.
Second thing is to plan/ budget for essentials ( including putting money aside for clothing, holidays, car repairs etc.
After that it's a case of listing out the debts and prioritizing them. Utility debts, council tax and rental arrears are the most important. Catalogue debts, credit cards and unsecured loans come at the bottom of the pile. ( I'm talking about the ones she is responsible for, clearly any that were in her partner's sole name should be dealt with by whoever's dealing with his estate).
Df

chevalier

Did he leave a will? Does he have any assets like a car etc that are his and his alone? They will be part of his estate. You might want to try and sort out an appointment with Citezens Advice for the bereaved so they don't make a mistake with sorting out his things.

Good luck and condolences to you boyfriends family
chev

elsien

She could also check with the water company if they have a hardship fund she could apply to to have some of the water debt paid off. I don't know how hard it is to get, but Severn Trent says they give grants for people in hardship and unable to pay.

xiavn

elsien wrote: »

She could also check with the water company if they have a hardship fund she could apply to to have some of the water debt paid off. I don't know how hard it is to get, but Severn Trent says they give grants for people in hardship and unable to pay.

Would the fact that it's now been handed over to a debt collection agency affect this? The letter I saw basically seemed to be stating they were at the point of "we'll send someone round". She has contacted them though, and I believe they've given her a hold of 30 days and then told her to get back in contact.

To be honest I think she was a little surprised by how well most places she's contacted have handled everything, and have supported and offered help. I hope this will make her feel better about tackling everything else in the future, I spoke to her about how most places will be happier accepting anything, more than someone who just ignores and sticks their head int he sand.

dancingfairy wrote: »

First step is to get benefits sorted and make sure she is getting everything she is entitled to.
Second thing is to plan/ budget for essentials ( including putting money aside for clothing, holidays, car repairs etc.
After that it's a case of listing out the debts and prioritizing them. Utility debts, council tax and rental arrears are the most important. Catalogue debts, credit cards and unsecured loans come at the bottom of the pile. ( I'm talking about the ones she is responsible for, clearly any that were in her partner's sole name should be dealt with by whoever's dealing with his estate).
Df

So far she's reapplied for housing benefit and tax credits, and has informed people to stop his disability and PIP payments and her payments for being a carer. She also still gets something for her daughter who is still living with her. She was told she could apply for support with funeral costs, but would first have to get her own benefits in order. I'm not sure if there's anything else she would need to apply for. Unfortunately although they were together over 20 years they never married so I think that discounts her from any bereavement allowances.

chevalier wrote: »

Did he leave a will? Does he have any assets like a car etc that are his and his alone? They will be part of his estate. You might want to try and sort out an appointment with Citezens Advice for the bereaved so they don't make a mistake with sorting out his things.

Good luck and condolences to you boyfriends family
chev

I don't believe he left a will, and the car is currently shared between them - they were still paying it off, she's contacted them and they've lowered the payments for the next few weeks to help out. I think she mentioned there's about a years worth of payments left. They were together around 29 years, so I think most things by this point were owned jointly.

Thanks for the advice about Citizen's Advice, we'll look into sorting something out as I think it may be helpful.

Thank you all for the help and advice!

pmlindyloo

How old is she and how old is the daughter?

pmlindyloo

Sorry, just realised that she was receiving Carer's Allowance.

She will continue to get this for 8weeks after the death of her partner.

https://www.carersuk.org/help-and-advice/financial-support/help-with-benefits/carers-allowance

Does she work? If she doesn't then she should enquire about income support whilst she is receiving CA.

elsien

Speaking to Severn Trent this week on behalf of someone who had had a "we're passing this to debt collector" letter, we were still told we could give it a go. They can only say no, after all.