Would appreciate a answer

Bornwild

To cut a long story short I've used this site before to post my story which you may find on my profile (to much stress to explain in detail). I finally got my brother to get round to dealing with my fathers WILL, but now there is another hold up, it turns out my father was claiming benefits when he was not suppose to be as he had over a certain amount of money in his bank account, this has been a shock and was discovered during probate.
This was back in September when we found this information out. Since than I was told by my brother that now bank statements need to be investigated to see how much we have to pay back from dads WILL. The WILL is now on hold and were left waiting to find out what's going to be left and happen.
It's been 4 months and my brother claims to still not know anything about this situation and says due to covid and the lockdown its holding our case up, is this true? I do not live in the UK anymore so I have no idea on the situation but I am sure solicitors will still be working or at least from home, I am sure banks our still open and I am pretty sure the DWP is still open though my mum claims its shut.

I'm starting to wonder if this is another stunt to hold up time on everything as I had a hassel about the WILL with my brother for the first year till he decided to do anything

I'm worried is it a trick to stay in dads house longer for free, is there some law that after so long he has rights to remain in dads house and does it really take a long time to find out regarding over payments and paying back debts from a WILL?

Thank you
Sorry its long

-taff

It took 18 months for them to sort out my fathers friends ex wifes estate after they suspected her of being overpaid benefits.

Bossyboots

As above, it takes a very long time and I expect even longer at the moment. 

SevenOfNine

There is a hold up, I spoke with DWP a couple of weeks ago & they confirmed they have a backlog.

Even in 'normal times' a few years ago, in similar circumstances as yours, my Aunt seeming to have claimed a benefit she may not have been entitled to & I had to go back 6 years for her finances on a specific date. It took DWP nearly 3 months to advise me that she had not been overpaid & the estate owed nothing!

I'm fully aware my late mum has been overpaid state pension, but they've told me not to worry about it, completely missing the point that I'd like to pay them what she owes & wrap up the estate. It's as if they think they're doing me a favour.

Do you know if your brother has given DWP the financial records (probably bank statements) that they will have requested?  He can go back 6 years via your dad's bank/s, that in itself might add to the delay. 

Mickey666

SevenOfNine said:

I'm fully aware my late mum has been overpaid state pension, but they've told me not to worry about it, completely missing the point that I'd like to pay them what she owes & wrap up the estate. It's as if they think they're doing me a favour.

If they confirmed in writing that they're willing to write off what she owes, as seems to be the implication, wouldn't that be sufficient sufficient to wrap up the estate?

Savvy_Sue

SevenOfNine said:

Even in 'normal times' a few years ago, in similar circumstances as yours, my Aunt seeming to have claimed a benefit she may not have been entitled to & I had to go back 6 years for her finances on a specific date. It took DWP nearly 3 months to advise me that she had not been overpaid & the estate owed nothing!

This is worth noting: if someone who was claiming Pension Credit dies, it is not at all unusual for the DWP to look at the size of the estate and say "hang on, this estate is quite big, they might owe us money because they might not have been entitled to all that PC."

HOWEVER, PC was claimable on INCOME, and there was something called a DISREGARD, so if the estate has a house to sell it very often looks as if PC might have been overpaid when in fact it was not - the level of savings WHEN IT WAS CLAIMED was below the limit, and the disregard kicked in meaning that an increased level of savings did not affect the claim. 

So if this is Pension Credit, it's worth doing a little detective work to see if the claim from DWP is likely to be valid. 

If it's any other benefit, the situation is different, but they do take a long time to confirm whether or not the money was claimed validly or not. 

Robert_McGeddon

It sounds like there's a house and a fair amount of cash (enough to affect benefits claims). Can you scope the potential DWP liability? If this is small in comparison to the assets then what's to stop the will being processed subject to a provision for the DWP liability?  Just as an example, if the assets totalled £300K and the DWP liability estimated at £20K then the executor could hold back £50K (to be prudent) and distribute £250K as an interim payment.

GSS20

My mother died in July and I’m still waiting to hear from them as she claimed pension credit and was on an indefinite assessment period but left a large estate due to sale of house previously. I’m 99.9% sure everything was claimed and within savings limits but until I get clearance from them I can’t distribute the estate. I phoned to ensure tell us once had notified them as when my father died they sent a letter within a couple of weeks wanting repayment of his pension, and they stated that it had (this was before grant of confirmation was given) and that the likelihood was that her week’s overpayment of pension may  be written off. Having heard nothing I finally wrote to them in November and still heard nothing. It does seem though that you do not have to repay an overpayment of pension, they will ask for it but you don’t need to repay it (different if they think a benefit shouldn’t have been claimed in the first place then they will investigate and expect repayment). The DWP are making it practically impossible to phone them if you require information so you’re brother is probably right about this.

hb2

My mother died more than 3 years ago. 6 months later I got a letter from DWP saying that they had overpaid £1000 in pension. I asked why they were using a date 4 weeks earlier than she died - it transpired that 'Tell us once' was given the wrong date by the registrar. I sent in a copy of the death cert (and also pointed out that mum's pension was supposed to have been paid in arrears) - and never heard from them again. No-one has ever contacted me to say I didn't actually owe anything!

SevenOfNine

Mickey666 said:

SevenOfNine said:

I'm fully aware my late mum has been overpaid state pension, but they've told me not to worry about it, completely missing the point that I'd like to pay them what she owes & wrap up the estate. It's as if they think they're doing me a favour.

If they confirmed in writing that they're willing to write off what she owes, as seems to be the implication, wouldn't that be sufficient sufficient to wrap up the estate?

I agree, only they're not doing anything! I'll probably just set it aside until they eventually let me know one way or the other, but I'd be happier to just pay it back so I can tick 'done'.