Deceased Estate and Pension

valio247

A couple of final (hopefully!) queries - in the 9-10 days period between my sisters death and registering the death and starting to contact the banks, utility companies etc...a benefits payment was made into the account I mentioned earlier which had a few hundred pounds in it.


As they were not aware of the death at the time of this payment does this need to be paid back? I am currently assuming under the circumstances it does and have not withdraw this towards funeral costs.


Also when contacting companies regarding the estate being insolvent, would an e-mail with Death Certificate attachment be appropriate or is a formal letter the more 'final and official' option.


Many thanks again for all previous advice.

valio247

In reply to brewerdave - sorry missed your post while busy typing my last message. There was no benefits nomination.

Tuesday_Tenor

valio247 wrote: »

- in the 9-10 days period between my sisters death and registering the death and starting to contact the banks, utility companies etc...a benefits payment was made into the account I mentioned earlier which had a few hundred pounds in it.

As they were not aware of the death at the time of this payment does this need to be paid back? I am currently assuming under the circumstances it does and have not withdraw this towards funeral .

I remember a long thread about this, in a situation where the money was no longer available, with conflicting opinions ... And I can't remember the final outcome.

My view is the same as yours. This is not to be treated the same as debts incurred by your sister in her lifetime with an agreed contract with someone agreeing to take on the risks associated with lending money.

It is simply an administrative matter; the account was sent money 'in error' as the date of death was not at that point known. Neither your sister nor the estate was entitled to anything after date of death; it is DWP's money so anything relating to post-death should be returned.

As that sum of money was nothing to do with the 'estate' I can't see how such action could be deemed as 'intermeddling' , but see later post, and I am not a lawyer.

Tuesday_Tenor

valio247 wrote: »

In reply to brewerdave - sorry missed your post while busy typing my last message. There was no benefits nomination.

Ah, that may change advice given previously.

You referred to 'beneficiaries' so it was assumed that there were named beneficiaries of the pension scheme.

Has the pension company actually said there is a particular sum to be paid out? I know little about pensions but I think it would be unusual for a post-death payment to be made except to a named beneficiary, a spouse, children or other dependants.

If there is such a sum then your sister's situation might be the exception to the 'not normally part of the estate' scenario.

I have no expertise re pensions, so will not comment further; will leave to others with more knowledge.

cte1111

Tuesday_Tenor wrote: »

Ah, that may change advice given previously.

You referred to 'beneficiaries' so it was assumed that there were named beneficiaries of the pension scheme.

Has the pension company actually said there is a particular sum to be paid out? I know little about pensions but I think it would be unusual for a post-death payment to be made except to a named beneficiary, a spouse, children or other dependants.

If there is such a sum then your sister's situation might be the exception to the 'not normally part of the estate' scenario.

I have no expertise re pensions, so will not comment further; will leave to others with more knowledge.

When my Aunt died, despite there being no named beneficiary on her pension, my sister and I received a payout from her pension scheme. This was outside her estate but as her will had left everything to us, the pension trustees decided also to pay out to us. So I don't think you are correct about post-death payments.

valio247

The pension company have quoted a figure and sent me a 'Notification of Potential beneficiaries Form' to complete. The hierarchy seems to be the same as the one used for intestate. So I assume nothing is guaranteed yet!

Tuesday_Tenor

valio247 wrote: »

Also when contacting companies regarding the estate being insolvent, would an e-mail with Death Certificate attachment be appropriate or is a formal letter the more 'final and official' option.

Many thanks again for all previous advice.

I was going to say a bit more about this but I am now less clear about the pension money. Previous advice may not be correct.

Edit: cross-posted with valio's last

Please let us know more about the pension scheme and exactly what the company has said so far. There are people on this board who will know more that I . Also more pensions experts over on the separate Pensions board who might understand the situation better.

Yorkshireman99

valio247 wrote: »

A couple of final (hopefully!) queries - in the 9-10 days period between my sisters death and registering the death and starting to contact the banks, utility companies etc...a benefits payment was made into the account I mentioned earlier which had a few hundred pounds in it.


As they were not aware of the death at the time of this payment does this need to be paid back? I am currently assuming under the circumstances it does and have not withdraw this towards funeral costs.


Also when contacting companies regarding the estate being insolvent, would an e-mail with Death Certificate attachment be appropriate or is a formal letter the more 'final and official' option.


Many thanks again for all previous advice.

The banks account should have been frozen. Any over payment will have to be repaid. You need to notify the DWP of the death and they will probably ask questions if your late sister was claiming any means tested benefits. That can take months to sort out.

Mojisola

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

they will probably ask questions if your late sister was claiming any means tested benefits. That can take months to sort out.

Expect to get an automatically-generated letter suggesting that they are owed a lot of money - just collect all the relevant information and send it back to them.

SevenOfNine

When my Aunt died we had to pay DWP back overpaid monies that went into her bank a/c before we had a chance to freeze them.

Also, they asked us to obtain a bank statement for a specific date 7 or 8 years earlier, when she applied for some benefit or other (forgotten which but £50 a week for help round the home or something, it had been a lifetime assessment back then).

Barclays were very good though they only keep records for 6 years so I asked for the oldest statement they could provide. They sent me every single one, for all 3 of her a/c's for the whole 6 years - overwhelmed with sheets of paper!

The faster you tell DWP, the faster they'll ask for what they want, the faster you can get it & move forward - but it may well take quite a few months seeing as 'fast' is not in the vocabulary of DWP.