credit card debt

flopsy1973

My mum passed away last month she owes £600 on a credit card I have contacted them and they have sent me load of papers. Can I say there is no money in estate to pay the debt, and will they leave it like that ?. There is no will


thanks

Yorkshireman99

flopsy1973 wrote: »

My mum passed away last month she owes £600 on a credit card I have contacted them and they have sent me load of papers. Can I say there is no money in estate to pay the debt, and will they leave it like that ?. There is no will


thanks

What assets did she have? Are you going to apply for letters of administration?

Keep_pedalling

If there are no assets beyond funeral costs then tell them the estate is insolvent, and that you are not administering it. If on the other hand her estate has sufficient assets to pay the dept then it wil have to be paid.

flopsy1973

Yes i am having to apply for letter of administration, there is enough money in estate but i was under impression her debt was written off? .
So ultimately these have to be paid water, credit card?

Linton

Yes, if there is money in the estate debts will have to be paid off before distributng the assets.

jonesMUFCforever

If you do not administer the estate properly and legally then YOU could finf yourself liable for the debts.
Please take care when doing this at a difficult time for you.

Yorkshireman99

flopsy1973 wrote: »

My mum passed away last month she owes £600 on a credit card I have contacted them and they have sent me load of papers. Can I say there is no money in estate to pay the debt, and will they leave it like that ?. There is no will


thanks

If you are administering the estate you need to remember that there is a legal obligation to administer it honestly. Not to deal correctly with a debt in the way you suggest is a criminal offense.

LondonGent

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

If you are administering the estate you need to remember that there is a legal obligation to administer it honestly. Not to deal correctly with a debt in the way you suggest is a criminal offense.

As far as I know, the order of priority of creditors being paid puts unsecured credit card debt last in line of being paid.

Executors expenses are number 2 on the list just after secured debts like mortgage and solicitors fees.

So if the estate has 1,000gbp in it and there is an unsecured debt of 600gbp, can the OP simply not write up 1,100gbp of executors expenses and tell the cc company there is no money in the estate?

Or...write up 999gbp in executors expenses and then tell the credit card company there is only 1gbp left, they need to take it or leave it.

Obviously everybody should manage their estate as honestly as possible, but at the same time citizens need to know what loopholes are available to them.

poppystar

craigedmonds wrote: »

Executors expenses are number 2 on the list just after secured debts like mortgage and solicitors fees.

So if the estate has 1,000gbp in it and there is an unsecured debt of 600gbp, can the OP simply not write up 1,100gbp of executors expenses and tell the cc company there is no money in the estate?

Or...write up 999gbp in executors expenses and then tell the credit card company there is only 1gbp left, they need to take it or leave it.

Obviously everybody should manage their estate as honestly as possible, but at the same time citizens need to know what loopholes are available to them.

And they might reasonably ask how an executor administering an estate of £1000 could run up reasonable expenses of £999

LondonGent

poppystar wrote: »

And they might reasonably ask how an executor administering an estate of £1000 could run up reasonable expenses of £999

Can the executor decline to reply in this case? I mean the card company are free to judge but it certainly wont have any impact [legally] will it? At the end of the day, they know they are at the bottom of the list of creditors, so can moan and complain but their hands are tied aren't they?

securityguy

"Can the executor decline to reply in this case?"

Of course. They don't have such flexibility in responding to a court, of course, and the creditors' next port of call is suing the executor, personally; probably for misappropriation or maladministration, but there's a lot of pellets in the legal shogun pointed at executors. If people started using the course of action you describe, large creditors like credit card companies might be tempted to bankrupt a few executors pour encourager les autres.