Death of primary cardholder - consequences for secondary cardholder

lr1277

Please can you advise on what happens to a secondary cardholder’s card on the death of the primary cardholder?
I would imagine both cards are no longer usable when the card company is informed.
Also any CPA’s on either card need to be changed or cancelled.
Any other advice you can give in this situation?

MovingForwards

Primary card holder is actually the account holder, secondary card holder is just a perk for primary account holder.

The survivor cannot use the card and should apply for their own.

All CPAs should be cancelled, if they were the account holders, any for the survivor should be transferred to an account in their name.

The debt becomes a debt of the estate and the CC company should be notified, even if you're waiting for the death certificate to do full notification to them.

Head over to the deaths and probate board for more answers to other questions.

Nebulous2

I'm sorry you are dealing with this. I read a recent article about exactly this from Google news. Unfortunately I can't find it. 

Credit cards are individual accounts as I'm sure you know. A secondary cardholder does not become responsible for any debt on the card - which is the responsibility of the primary cardholders estate.

The card will stop on notifying the lender. Lenders have bereavement teams who should offer support and guide you through the process. 

blue.peter

You're right. The card issuer will cancel both cards.

This happened when my father died. My mother was the secondary cardholder, and found herself without any credit card as soon as I notified the issuer of Dad's death. Fortunately, it turned out not to be a problem for her, though I can see that it might be for someone else.

The secondary cardholder might well have difficulty getting a credit card in their own right, but this will depend on their circumstances. My mother is unable to get one, even though she has a decent widow's pension and substantial savings. This is because she has no credit history in her own right - she hasn't worked outside the home since the 1950s, and relied on Dad for all financial matters. She now has to rely on her debit card alone, which means that she needs to keep sufficient cash in her bank account. (Well, in practice, I'm her attorney and I do that for her.)

blue.peter

Nebulous2 said:
Lenders have bereavement teams who should offer support and guide you through the process. 

I'd expect this, but didn't experience it. I phoned my father's card issuer, notified them of his death, they cancelled his card and Mum's, and that was it. I never had to contact them or heard another word from them. And, as his executor, I would have been the person to deal with any issues. Having said that, Dad had been ill for a few weeks and hadn't spent anything on his card, so there was no outstanding debt.

Nebulous2

blue.peter said:

Nebulous2 said:
Lenders have bereavement teams who should offer support and guide you through the process. 

I'd expect this, but didn't experience it. I phoned my father's card issuer, notified them of his death, they cancelled his card and Mum's, and that was it. I never had to contact them or heard another word from them. And, as his executor, I would have been the person to deal with any issues. Having said that, Dad had been ill for a few weeks and hadn't spent anything on his card, so there was no outstanding debt.

It may well depend on the lender and the team. 
OP Here's a link which gives details of poor service by Barclays, with a brief summary - scroll down beyond the first article about e-bikes. Hopefully if the bereaved person doesn't have another card the bank will help them set one up.  

ASK TONY: Why did home insurer slam brakes on £900 e-bike claim? | This is Money

blue.peter

Nebulous2 said:

It may well depend on the lender and the team.

Yes. It might also depend on the circumstances. My point was that dealing with my father's card was a very simple case - one phone conversation was all that was needed, so I had no need to deal with the issuer's bereavement team (assuming that they have one).

Nebulous2 said:

OP Here's a link which gives details of poor service by Barclays...

I see no link - it appears not to have caught. You might wish to try again.

lr1277

Thank you for your condolences, but my family are not there yet. Sorry I was not clear in my OP; I was thinking ahead.
This issue has arisen because my mum is the secondary card holder. She paid for something over the internet but it didn’t work so i helped her organise a refund which she is now expecting before she will buy a replacement. To check on the refund, she is not sure dad setup internet access to the card account and if he did he won’t remember the details now. And he can’t setup internet access now because of memory/cognitive issues. So she needs to wait for the statement to find about the refund. As a secondary cardholder I am not sure she can setup internet access to my dad’s card/account. She is not keen on talking to customer services incase they want to speak to dad and he can’t answer security questions because of his memory/cognitive issues. I think part of the reason for her unwillingness is over a year ago, we phoned RBS about a current account. When the operative was asking dad the security questions, he heard me and mum prompting dad the answers. He immediately shut down access to the account and dad had to go to a branch and prove his identity to regain access to the account. That was a palaver in itself.
Thinking ahead she needs her own card for the household spending, including transferring any CPA’s onto her card account. Thank you for your help.

eskbanker

lr1277 said:

he can’t answer security questions because of his memory/cognitive issues

Do you (or anyone else) have power of attorney yet?

lr1277

eskbanker said:

lr1277 said:

he can’t answer security questions because of his memory/cognitive issues

Do you (or anyone else) have power of attorney yet?

Yes both mum and I do. However based on our experience of getting RBS to register the POA, I am not sure mum wants to go through that again with any financial institution. I don’t remember all the details of the process but I do remember it was drawn out and somewhat complicated. We tried to register the POA at the start of lockdown last year which would have added to the timescale and may have added to the complexity. It is worth considering as an approach to solve the problem. Thank you.
Btw. I wouldn’t know how to setup POA without the primary cardholder speaking to customer services.
Part of the complexity was we used dad’s passport as the ID for the solicitor when setting up the POA. So the POA is the name in his passport. However many of dad’s accounts were setup long before AML regulations. On opening accounts he used a shortened form of his name which while still recognisable as him, does not match the name on his POA document.

p00hsticks

blue.peter said:

Nebulous2 said:

It may well depend on the lender and the team.

  My point was that dealing with my father's card was a very simple case - one phone conversation was all that was needed, so I had no need to deal with the issuer's bereavement team

Even with the dedicated bereavement team, it usually only takes one phone call. I'm surprised that when you phoned you weren;t trasferred over to the bereavement team when you explained why you were calling - surely they wanted some evidence that the cardholder was actually dead and thet you were in a position to be dealing with the estate before they closed the card ?

In my experience, where the deceased banked with the same group that both of his credit cards were with, I called the specific bereavement team number for the bank. Whilst on the phone they took the details to close both his credit cards (including me giving permission to pay a small outstanding balance on one from the funds in his bank account) and where to transfer the money in his current account to, but this only happened after I uploaded ID and a scanned copy of the death certificate to a link sent to me immediately after the call.