Minimum requirements?

Yellow_mango

My sister died on Sunday. She lived alone and was not close to anyone in the family. As far as we are aware she had no assets and possibly substantial debt. I believe she received a back payment of PIP recently and went on a bit of a spending spree, but its possible there is enough cash left to cover funeral costs. As far as we are aware there is no will. 
My father has registered the debt and obtained death certificates, and is arranging the funeral. I will at some point be visiting the house to collect sentimental items and documents (although that's somewhat difficult due to distance and corona restrictions on travel / accommodation).  From what I've read on here so far, I think we want to avoid administering the estate if at all possible. 
What I'm not sure on is what we really have to do in relation to the following:
- clearing the house - other than retrieving personal items, do we have any obligation to clear or arrange clearing? It is a HA property and hoarded. 
- dealing with creditors - do we need to inform them of the death other than out of courtesy (for the next occupant of the address if nothing else)? Or make any arrangements to pay them to the extent there is anything in the estate (unlikely). How far does any obligation to sell assets to cover debts go? There may be items such as TVs, PCs, phones etc that have some limited value. Can we get into trouble for disposing of these eg to charity?
- I understand there have been deliveries of items ordered shortly before death, including a new washing machine / dryer. Do we have an obligation to return these? Or do they just form part of items to be cleared? 
- will we be able to find out whether there is any cash in her bank accounts and access this eg for funeral expenses without applying for administration? Who will the bank talk to and what ID will they need? 
- anything else I haven't thought of (probably loads!). 

Thanks!

Robin9

Such sad times.
As your father is already arranging the funeral he has committed himself to picking up the bills. 

You do need to contact the HA re clearing the property. It will be cheaper for you to do so but probably impractical in the present circumstances - perhaps the HA will be understanding.

Yellow_mango

Robin9 said:

Such sad times.
As your father is already arranging the funeral he has committed himself to picking up the bills. 

You do need to contact the HA re clearing the property. It will be cheaper for you to do so but probably impractical in the present circumstances - perhaps the HA will be understanding.

Thank you for replying. 

What happens if we just don't clear the property? Are we actually liable for the cost of this just by virtue of having contacted the HA to report the death? Will accessing the property to retrieve personal items trigger liability / responsibility for a complete clearance? 

And are you saying there is no way to recover funeral costs (or house clearance costs) from the estate once this has been arranged (assuming there are any assets from which to recover it, which is far from certain)?

That all seems very unfair. Let's say there is £2k sat in her bank account (purely made up figure). Where will it go if it cannot be used towards these costs? 

I guess my question is - what if we just don't (clear house, contact creditors etc). We just retrieve personal items, arrange a funeral, and walk away. Can anyone make us do anything else? 

Keep_pedalling

Yellow_mango said:

Robin9 said:

Such sad times.
As your father is already arranging the funeral he has committed himself to picking up the bills. 

You do need to contact the HA re clearing the property. It will be cheaper for you to do so but probably impractical in the present circumstances - perhaps the HA will be understanding.

Thank you for replying. 

What happens if we just don't clear the property? Are we actually liable for the cost of this just by virtue of having contacted the HA to report the death? Will accessing the property to retrieve personal items trigger liability / responsibility for a complete clearance? 

And are you saying there is no way to recover funeral costs (or house clearance costs) from the estate once this has been arranged (assuming there are any assets from which to recover it, which is far from certain)?

That all seems very unfair. Let's say there is £2k sat in her bank account (purely made up figure). Where will it go if it cannot be used towards these costs? 

I guess my question is - what if we just don't (clear house, contact creditors etc). We just retrieve personal items, arrange a funeral, and walk away. Can anyone make us do anything else? 

In the case of an insolvent estate, the family of the deceased are not responsible for any debts, and none of you should attempt to administer the estate. The HA cannot charge the family for the clearance. 

Your father has engaged a FD so he is responsible for paying that bill. There was no actual obligation for him to do this, where an estate has no assets the LA will arrange a simple no frills funeral at there expense.

Linton

As Keep-pedalling says you have no legal obligation to do anything.  However you may well feel you have some responsibility to do the basics.  If you are not administering the estate I would be very wary about taking responsibility for removing anything from the property that could have any conceivable value, which could well include personal items.  Just inform the creditors of the death and the fact that it is not being administered.

Dox

Yellow_mango said:

Robin9 said:

Such sad times.
As your father is already arranging the funeral he has committed himself to picking up the bills. 

You do need to contact the HA re clearing the property. It will be cheaper for you to do so but probably impractical in the present circumstances - perhaps the HA will be understanding.

I guess my question is - what if we just don't (clear house, contact creditors etc). We just retrieve personal items, arrange a funeral, and walk away. Can anyone make us do anything else? 

You don't have to be involved any further, whatever pressure you come under from other parties. Unless the 'personal items' belong to you, I wouldn't attempt to take anything. 

Yellow_mango

Thank you. So are we better not to contact any banks / accounts etc at all? Or can we write as a courtesy without incurring any further liability or obligation? Presumably it will be a nightmare for the next occupant at that address if no companies are informed? 

We have no problem with paying for the funeral if need be. Having some say in arranging this has I think been helpful for my parents. (I believe the bill has already been paid, and we will discuss splitting the cost between us at some point. There is no conflict between other family members). We were just thinking that if there did happen to be some cash in the bank account, it would help us to be able to use this to cover some or all of the costs. But if the only way to access this is to administer the estate as a whole, it certainly will not be worth the hassle. 

Yellow_mango

Linton said:

As Keep-pedalling says you have no legal obligation to do anything.  However you may well feel you have some responsibility to do the basics.  If you are not administering the estate I would be very wary about taking responsibility for removing anything from the property that could have any conceivable value, which could well include personal items.  Just inform the creditors of the death and the fact that it is not being administered.

Is there any guideline / de minimus for the value of personal items? An ipad / phone? A sewing machine? I'm not aware of any jewellery of any financial value. 

If there is any risk of being deemed to administer the estate, I'd far rather take no items of this kind at all. It would feel kind of strange to use them in the circumstances anyway. Mostly I would just like to have the opportunity to check for personal documents, medical / legal records etc. maybe photos. I think to inform DWP / DVLA etc we will need copies of passport / driving licence / NI number etc (though would that also be deemed to be administrating the estate?). Plus there have been some complicated family circumstances and its possible there are documents which could shed more light on these. Also if we are going to contact creditors etc in any way I will need to look for relevant correspondence to identify these. 

Mojisola

Yellow_mango said:

Thank you. So are we better not to contact any banks / accounts etc at all? Or can we write as a courtesy without incurring any further liability or obligation?

We have no problem with paying for the funeral if need be. Having some say in arranging this has I think been helpful for my parents. (I believe the bill has already been paid,

You can contact banks, DWP, etc, and inform them of the death without any further liability.  Tell them that no-one is administering the estate and not to contact you on the matter.

If the bill hadn't been paid already, the FD could have sent the bill to the bank who would have paid it directly.

The funeral costs are usually the priority bill to be paid from the estate but, if no-one is dealing with it, I don't know how you would claim the cost back.

Linton

Yellow_mango said:

Linton said:

As Keep-pedalling says you have no legal obligation to do anything.  However you may well feel you have some responsibility to do the basics.  If you are not administering the estate I would be very wary about taking responsibility for removing anything from the property that could have any conceivable value, which could well include personal items.  Just inform the creditors of the death and the fact that it is not being administered.

Is there any guideline / de minimus for the value of personal items? An ipad / phone? A sewing machine? I'm not aware of any jewellery of any financial value. 

If there is any risk of being deemed to administer the estate, I'd far rather take no items of this kind at all. It would feel kind of strange to use them in the circumstances anyway. Mostly I would just like to have the opportunity to check for personal documents, medical / legal records etc. maybe photos. I think to inform DWP / DVLA etc we will need copies of passport / driving licence / NI number etc (though would that also be deemed to be administrating the estate?). Plus there have been some complicated family circumstances and its possible there are documents which could shed more light on these. Also if we are going to contact creditors etc in any way I will need to look for relevant correspondence to identify these. 

I cant see personal documents being an issue as they wont affect the financial situation and there would be a very good case for putting them somewhere safe to avoid future identity fraud.  On the other hand from what you have said there is a new unused washing machine on which creditors may take a different view.  As regards old IPADs etc, better in my view to err on the side of caution.  There are no absolute rules or allowances.

Yellow_mango

Thanks. No-one has any interest in the washing machine or in trying to sell any items to realise value. I guess it could be returned for a refund but that wouldn’t help anyone if we have no access to the bank account. It might well have been bought on credit. I won’t know until I can see the delivery note / documentation (assuming all order confirmations etc aren’t on email to which of course no-one has access). 

I think you’re right, better to err on the side of caution and just take nothing at all other than documents.