Utility bills

thewad

Will the banks continue to pay M in Laws utility bills once we inform them of her death......house will eventually be up for sale once will and probate is sorted.

JGB1955

No - they will freeze her account.  You will need to speak to the bereavement departments of each utility company and let them know that payment won't be forthcoming until probate is granted. You may find that the water supplier will close the account and agree no further charges.

Bigphil1474

As above is spot on. The executor should contact them all individually. With my dad's, they closed his utilities accounts and sent all paperwork to me, address to the executor. You will still need to provide meter readings every now and then, and maybe make some payments depending on the current balance. The only thing that her bank will likely let her money be used for is the cost of the funeral. The rest will probably be stuck until probate is granted, which will take a few months.

Flugelhorn

agree with others - water company closed the account from the date that mother was admitted to hospital 4 weeks prior to death and didn't charge us for the  use after that (while the house was being got ready for sale etc).

gas and electricity seemed happy to wait until probate was granted, they certainly didn't pester - only bill I had to pay was the house insurance

answer is to speak to the bereavement teams - seemed that they saved their best training and selection for the people there who were incredibly helpful

slackgarry

Flugelhorn said:

answer is to speak to the bereavement teams - seemed that they saved their best training and selection for the people there who were incredibly helpful

Totally agree with this...

p00hsticks

Flugelhorn said:

only bill I had to pay was the house insurance

And this is the important one, assuming that the property is now unoccupied. You need to remove any valuables form the property for safekeeping (and let your insurance company know you now have them if that valuable) and let the deceased's insurance company know straight away.

In my experience, the existing company may well honour the current policy until the end of the agreed term, although  the may have some additional exclusions and/or impose some conditions such as checking the property frequently, turning the water off etc.  

I found when the current insurance ran out the current company wouldn't renew, and I has to arrange specialist unoccupied property insurance.  

Sarahspangles

When MIL passed away:

• Her phone/broadband contract remained active to the end of the month, but they didn’t enforce the notice period.
• TV licensing credited her bank account for the unused period of her annual licence fee.
• The water and sewage company repaid a small overpayment as her supply was metered. They did ask for OH’s contact details as an Executor, and he provided a meter reading when the property was sold, but they didn’t charge the estate for the small amount of usage.
• The gas and electricity contract was tricky as they were in the middle of moving customers onto a new IT system. In the end OH decided to close her account and set up one in his name, but he did have access to estate funds to pay this from. This meant there was a deposit of the credit balance to MIL’s account, and the new account got the government help with energy bills. Not sure about that but it’s what happened!