Empty house since parent died this week

getmore4less

We got a refund on insurance as the cover went down, no accidental or valuables.

Council tax should be zero and for 6months after grant is issued.

angela110660

Morning and a huge thank you for all the advice offered by you all. MSE people are such stars✨
There is a lot to think through and my siblings and I will have to check carefully. We have important papers away from the house so can look through it all properly. We all live locally so can share the checks etc on the place.
Thank you all again - still not real though.

TheGardener

Yorkshireman99 wrote: »

It is quite wrong not to tell the bank imediately. It will stop unnecessary payments by DD or standing order being made that may unrevoverable.

Unfortunately it would have also stopped legitimate essential payments coming in...In the bigger scheme of things and in the shock and confusion of the event - leaving off telling the bank for a week or so worked well for us and it would have made life a lot harder for us if we'd told them immediately. There is no law that I am aware of that says the bank have to be at the top of the informed list. They might like to be but hey - they were not our priority at the time. The utility DD's still needed to go out - the house still needed water, gas and electric even though no one was there.
As for RAC/Car insurance and other small payments etc - we had no problems getting any over payments back if they were due.

NordicNoir

TheGardener wrote: »

Unfortunately it would have also stopped legitimate essential payments coming in...In the bigger scheme of things and in the shock and confusion of the event - leaving off telling the bank for a week or so worked well for us and it would have made life a lot harder for us if we'd told them immediately. There is no law that I am aware of that says the bank have to be at the top of the informed list. They might like to be but hey - they were not our priority at the time. The utility DD's still needed to go out - the house still needed water, gas and electric even though no one was there.
As for RAC/Car insurance and other small payments etc - we had no problems getting any over payments back if they were due.

The bank is probably the most important of all to be informed quickly. If left, things can get into a horrible mess quickly. The utility DD's can bounce, they expect this with a death and will wait for payment once they have been informed.

One of the worst messes, that I have seen, was where a bank was not informed immediately and the account continued for several months. The deceased had several private pensions being paid and charity donations by DD's. The pension companies were quite upset and wanted their overpayments back immediately but the family used the funds (that they had no right to) to settle the funeral costs.

Yorkshireman99

TheGardener wrote: »

Unfortunately it would have also stopped legitimate essential payments coming in...In the bigger scheme of things and in the shock and confusion of the event - leaving off telling the bank for a week or so worked well for us and it would have made life a lot harder for us if we'd told them immediately. There is no law that I am aware of that says the bank have to be at the top of the informed list. They might like to be but hey - they were not our priority at the time. The utility DD's still needed to go out - the house still needed water, gas and electric even though no one was there.
As for RAC/Car insurance and other small payments etc - we had no problems getting any over payments back if they were due.

The executors or personal representatives are responsible for dealing with any bills the estate are due to pay. Not telling the bank immediately is irresponsible at the very least and plain dishonest at worst. The executors or personal representatives are in a position of trust and not telling the bank is a breach of that trust. If there is little money in the esate it can mean creditors are paid who should not be as well as payments into the account being made in error. The executors or personal representatives could be personally liable in such circumstances.

Linton

TheGardener wrote: »

Unfortunately it would have also stopped legitimate essential payments coming in...In the bigger scheme of things and in the shock and confusion of the event - leaving off telling the bank for a week or so worked well for us and it would have made life a lot harder for us if we'd told them immediately. There is no law that I am aware of that says the bank have to be at the top of the informed list. They might like to be but hey - they were not our priority at the time. The utility DD's still needed to go out - the house still needed water, gas and electric even though no one was there.
As for RAC/Car insurance and other small payments etc - we had no problems getting any over payments back if they were due.

But the utilities DDs didnt need to go out. Actually, letting them go out causes more hassle than stopping them as they will be based on previous usage. So the DDs which go out will mostly need to be reclaimed anyway. As others have said once you tell the utilities of the death they are perfectly happy to let costs mount up until things are sorted out.

What legitimate income carries on? Pensions need to be stopped immediately, if not they will need to be repaid. Other issues arise if the estate were to be insolvent. It would be wrong for companies with DDs to get preferential treatment.

Keep_pedalling

MichelleUK wrote: »

The bank is probably the most important of all to be informed quickly. If left, things can get into a horrible mess quickly. The utility DD's can bounce, they expect this with a death and will wait for payment once they have been informed.

One of the worst messes, that I have seen, was where a bank was not informed immediately and the account continued for several months. The deceased had several private pensions being paid and charity donations by DD's. The pension companies were quite upset and wanted their overpayments back immediately but the family used the funds (that they had no right to) to settle the funeral costs.

Agreed, and the mess can get even worse if someone with with access to the accounts uses it for their own purposes, which if you look through some of the threads here you will find examples of.

Having been executor of two estates I can assure you getting the accounts frozen within a day of the death caused no problems whatsoever. Sorting out a combination of under and over payments at a later date would have been more hassle.

Linton

Some useful links
https://bereavementadvice.org/topics/what-to-do-when-someone-dies/step-by-step-checklist
https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/overview

mumps

Keep_pedalling wrote: »

Agreed, and the mess can get even worse if someone with with access to the accounts uses it for their own purposes, which if you look through some of the threads here you will find examples of.

Having been executor of two estates I can assure you getting the accounts frozen within a day of the death caused no problems whatsoever. Sorting out a combination of under and over payments at a later date would have been more hassle.

We informed the bank immediately and then had problems as refunds of things like gas, electric, council tax, were paid as a cheque in her name and she had no active account so problems cashing the cheques. She also had a pension payment due from her late husband's company pension. It was from another country and the payment didn't go through. We really wished we had waited a week or two.

TheGardener

wow - all that for a week or so delay :eek: In our circumstances it was the best policy - having passed away over Christmas the banks we not even open (neither was anyone else for that matter including all the other people we had to tell) The family were not in a position - particular at that time of year - to make some of the essential payments - they were not all utilities - and all legitimate payments that would have to have been made anyway so it was more straight forward for them to be paid then rather than wait several weeks (or several months if solicitors had done it) until after probate.
I did not for a moment suggest that accounts should be allowed to function for months - that would be fraud if nothing else I suspect! I said - a couple of weeks or so. Lordy - if it all happened again, sorry but I still wouldn't be rushing to the bank first thing the following morning...
The payments coming in were from business interests - the pension people were told as soon as it was possible to tell them.
As mumps said - getting repayments into another account was a huge issues, they all wanted to pay back into the deceased's account.
Once we were organised, we told the bank and followed the correct procedure with the undertakers and bank for the settlement of funeral expenses once the account was suspended.
I do not believe for a moment we acted irresponsibly.