Unpaid debt letter from Council 5 yrs after Mum's death

sheramber

Organisations Tell Us Once will contact

Tell Us Once will notify:

• HM Revenue and Customs (HMRC) - to deal with personal tax and to cancel benefits and credits, for example Child Benefit and tax credits
• Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) - to cancel benefits and entitlements, for example Universal Credit or State Pension
• Passport Office - to cancel a British passport
• Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) - to cancel a licence, remove the person as the keeper of up to 5 vehicles and end the vehicle tax
• the local council - to cancel Housing Benefit, Council Tax Reduction (sometimes called Council Tax Support), a Blue Badge, inform council housing services and remove the person from the electoral register

https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/organisations-you-need-to-contact-and-tell-us-once

No mention of care home services.

badmemory

You would think they would notice that the care home had stopped billing them

clspg79

I believe the "tell us once"  would have included this under council housing services. It is the Adult Social Care department at the council that is in question, apparently they include themselves as housing services. Though to be honest I'm not sure that I know my own name at this point.

BooJewels

The points I was going to raise have already been covered - but both of my parents were in care at different times (Mum first), so I've had the dubious pleasure of dealing with such council matters - it sucks your will to live. My poor Dad was run ragged trying to get Mum's funding right over about 20 months - they were constantly reviewing and re-calculating it and each time resulted in a 30 page unfathomable document arriving in the post - I know, because I shredded the whole blasted lot.

In the end, after she died, they decided that he still owed about £1,500.  So he told them he'd pay it back in interest free instalments over the same period as they took to get it right. So he paid them around £100 per month for 15 months.  I paid the last few myself once he was in care himself.  He himself died in 2020 and we're still waiting on a funding appeal that arose as a result of an audit - so none of this stuff seems to be dealt with with any sense of urgency.

So as they've taken over 5 years to chase you for this (did the bill fall down the back of a filing cabinet?), offer to pay it back over the same period - that'll be about 6 quid a month.  I do get that would be a total irritation, but I'm stubborn like that and would so do it on principle.

badmemory

BooJewels said:

So as they've taken over 5 years to chase you for this (did the bill fall down the back of a filing cabinet?), offer to pay it back over the same period - that'll be about 6 quid a month.  I do get that would be a total irritation, but I'm stubborn like that and would so do it on principle.

Oh I wish I'd thought of that.

Savvy_Sue

As to a sense of urgency ... MIL was admitted to a home for palliative care last July. Not only has she not died, she now appears to be gaining strength and 'will to live'. I wondered at what point her needs might be re-assessed: this August, ie 13 months after admission. "We should have done this after 12 weeks" said the lovely lady carrying out the assessment. 

I KNOW that the result of the assessment will require her to pay. We're still waiting for the results which might tell us how much. I'm firmly of the opinion that the back of that filing cabinet leads to a black hole ...