Alarm Company chasing debt for deceased 18 August 2022 at 9:30AM edited 18 August 2022 at 9:31AM in Deaths, funerals & probate 8 replies 544 views

mr_stripey

Hi. I have just seen a letter from a Burglar Alarm company chasing payment of "alarm monitoring" services at my late father's property. I was not aware he had signed up for such an agreement and to be honest given his state of health at the time, am surprised he had the capacity to do so (vascular dementia) - nevertheless there is an agreement signed by him

It appears he signed up for two years monitoring in 2019 with a direct debit schedule of payments to be taken in Sept 2020 and Sept 2021.

He died in December 2020. This is the first contact I've seen from the company.

How best to handle? Ignore? Engage them and explain? Write back saying person is deceased? 

Any advice much appreciated.

The_Unready

Who was the executor of the will? This info really needs to go to them in the first instance.

Dolor

What happens to debts when someone dies?

If the debts are in the deceased person’s sole name and they have no assets, the debts will not be owed by anybody else when they die.

If the debts are joint or someone has acted as a guarantor, then the surviving person or guarantor will be liable for these debts. If you have been left with debts which are unaffordable please contact us for advice.

If the deceased person has assets in their estate, joint or sole, the debts become a liability on the estate. The executor of the estate is responsible for paying outstanding debts from the estate.

74jax

mr_stripey said:

Hi. I have just seen a letter from a Burglar Alarm company chasing payment of "alarm monitoring" services at my late father's property. I was not aware he had signed up for such an agreement and to be honest given his state of health at the time, am surprised he had the capacity to do so (vascular dementia) - nevertheless there is an agreement signed by him

It appears he signed up for two years monitoring in 2019 with a direct debit schedule of payments to be taken in Sept 2020 and Sept 2021.

He died in December 2020. This is the first contact I've seen from the company.

How best to handle? Ignore? Engage them and explain? Write back saying person is deceased? 

Any advice much appreciated.

Any paperwork like this goes to the Executor of the Estate. They would have done full searches to make sure all debts were paid before the Estate was settled.  They would have seen a payment in September 2020 (as he only passed on Dec 2020) when checking his accounts for usual annual bills.
The Executor may have already been in touch trying to get info and the company ignored / didn't reply. 
Sept 2021's direct debit wouldn't have been made so I'm not sure why they never got in touch then. 
However, I definately wouldn't ignore. Pass to the Executor who will make contact and advise them of the death. 

Keep_pedalling

The executor should have picked this up from your father’s bank statements and informed the alarm company at the time. Do not ignore the executor(s) need to write back informing them of his death including a copy of his death certificate. 

I would have thought the service would still be valuable between his death and the point the house was sold while the house was empty.

mr_stripey

Thanks for the responses. I am one of the executors of the will (if I understand the terminology correctly)

Didn't pick this up from his bank statements as it appears to have been an agreement to pay two annual installments 2020 and 2021 - I don't know if either of these were collected (presumably not, since the company are chasing)

Alarm was rarely armed (so don't know if it is being "monitored" when it is "off"?

I will write back informing them of death and include death cert and await their next move? House is not yet sold, but rest of estate has been dispersed and all other debts and obligations settled.

TBagpuss

wosrst case secenario is that you will need to pay the bills from the sale proceeds of the house. It sounds as though the alarm co. haven't previously been informaed of his death a so theydon't appaer to have done anything wrong.

I think monitoring would simply mean sending someone out / calling the police / housholder if the alarm went off, not monitoring or policing whether it was turned on or not.

KxMx

If you feel he didn't have capacity to sign the agreement and perhaps have some evidence,  then it may be worth presenting this to the company when you contact them to notify them of his death. 

msb1234

I’d ask the bank to search for records of payments to this company going back to when they say he signed the agreement.