Bereavement and car insurance

gillg57

Hi,
Trying to find some clear info about this circumstance please. A family member recently passed away. His insurers have said they can transfer the car insurance policy to an executor account. All good so far and as the executor of the Will I am also in the process of sorting things out with the finance company given the car was leased. I’ll need to pay the outstanding amount on the lease and take up the option to buy. To do otherwise will mean losing a lot of money as it is a new car. I am happy for another family member to have use of the car until such time as it is sold. But trying to make sense of the insurance and road tax is proving to be a nightmare. The insurers say once DVLA is told (which will be soon as using the government tell them once process) the deceased family member will no longer be the registered keeper of the car and the policy with them will end. They provide insurance for older people so will not be able to provide cover for the intended user. I don’t have a licence (can’t and don’t want to drive) so that appears to leave a problem getting the car insured for use by someone else until it is sold. Any idea if it is possible and if so what is the best order to do things in please? Any help gratefully received. Road tax is equally confusing! 

DullGreyGuy

Are you sure you can buy the car? If it a lease that normally isnt an option whereas it is for a PCP deal which sometimes people mistakenly call a lease. 

You need to inform the DVLA who the new registered keeper is going to be, it'd make sense for it to be the person thats going to be driving it, and they can then insure and tax the vehicle to be able to use it. They will have to declare that someone else is the owner of the vehicle when insuring it and that may increase the premiums depending on the relationship between them and the deceased. 

daveyjp

PCP or lease is important.

If its a PCP there is no need to take up the option to buy the car and that may be seen as spending money from the estate which needn't be spent.

When this happened to a friend she just paid off what was due under the PCP and the dealer picked the car up.

If there is a request from a relative to buy the car the beneficiary will need to buy it, transfer ownership with DVLA and arrange tax and insurance.

stuhse

My view is its inappropriate to let someone else use the car...its an unnecessary risk and  will devalue it.  Just leave it parked until sold or collected by the lease company.  I'd imagine there is a clause in the contract covering death.

gillg57

Thanks all. I may have the description wrong and it could be PCP. The agreement has to honoured as if run for the full term. There is then the option to simply return or alternatively buy the car. If I just return it there is no benefit to the beneficiaries. If the estate pays the buy option, research has clearly identified the car could be sold for a higher figure, which would then clearly be of benefit to the estate, in accordance with the responsibilities of the executor and not spending money that doesn’t need to be spent as suggested. Stuhse - there isn’t a clause in car contracts re deaths (a commonplace complaint on the bereavement forums) it is simply treated as an early termination in the same way as any other early termination with no regard given to the circumstances at all. All beneficiaries are content with the approach that will be taken. My query was the best way to ensure the car is insured and taxed until sold 😀 Whether driven or nor by someone else the car still needs to be insured and taxed and I do not have a driving licence to do it. 

DullGreyGuy

That's the thing to double check, that the sale price is going to be materially more than the balloon. With our PCP deal the balloon was about £5k more than the forecourt price of equivalent vehicles and inevitably what I'd get for the vehicle is going to be significantly below ticket price. 

Whoever did the calcs on our car clearly messed up the residual estimation fairly badly, hence the monthly payments were notably below what we were exceptions. If they do their job well there should be a big difference. 

Keep_pedalling

Don’t rely on the tell us once service to sort the DVLA. If the car can be stored off the public road then call the DVLA to get it SORN you won’t then need to tax it 

https://www.gov.uk/make-a-sorn

You don’t need probate to dispose of the car, if the estate does not have the cash to settle the finance We buy any Car and The Motorway will buy cars that have finance although I don’t know how willing they are to do that from executors.