Recovery from Estates

AgathaC

Hello, I am an executor of a family member who passed away last year. She was claiming pension credit for a number of years. 

TBH I don’t know if she was entitled to it as she held various shares which she cashed in during the last couple of years of her life then transferred the money to family members to look after the money. 

(10,000+)

Recovery from Estates are now looking into this and have asked to see bank statements of the family members accounts who received money from her. 

Are they allowed to do this? 

Surely their purpose is to determine if she was eligible or not to receive pension credit. Not to ask where she sent her money. 

Please advise, thank you. 

Alphatauri

You can’t give away money so you become eligible for means tested benefits. Asking for bank statements is perfectly reasonable. 

Hoenir

AgathaC said:

TBH I don’t know if she was entitled to it as she held various shares which she cashed in during the last couple of years of her life then transferred the money to family members to look after the money. 

(10,000+)

As an executor your role carries legal responsibilities. Also personal liability. Better to act professionally and not seem to be hiding anything. 

boingy

I don't think the OP is suggesting they are planning to hide anything and I don't see how an executor can be held responsible for anything that happened in the years before the family member died. Neither would I expect the executor to be required to supply bank statements from anyone other than the deceased. 

The DWP may need to claim back money from the estate and the executor has to make provision for that in their administration of the estate. 

Daniel54

I would agree with the thought that the first port of call would be the statements for the deceased,specifically with regard to amounts in and out.Have these already been supplied or accessed  to or by the DWP

The amount of pension credit reduces for savings over £10,000 so t would seem highly likely that there might be some form of reimbursement due to DWP..Pension criteria are set out in the attachedhttps://www.gov.uk/pension-credit/eligibility

doodling

Hi,

AgathaC said:

Hello, I am an executor of a family member who passed away last year. She was claiming pension credit for a number of years. 

TBH I don’t know if she was entitled to it as she held various shares which she cashed in during the last couple of years of her life then transferred the money to family members to look after the money. 

(10,000+)

Recovery from Estates are now looking into this and have asked to see bank statements of the family members accounts who received money from her. 

Are they allowed to do this? 

Surely their purpose is to determine if she was eligible or not to receive pension credit. Not to ask where she sent her money. 

Please advise, thank you. 

They are allowed to ask for whatever they want.  Whether you have to respond to their requests is an entirely different question.

You should of course be cooperating with them in terms of providing financial information about the deceased and their accounts (which would presumably include the details of any bank transfers they may have made, or cash withdrawals that might have been gifts to others).

Realistically, you have no right to see other people's bank statements so I don't see how you can help them with that.  If you are concerned about providing details of your own accounts (if you were one of the people money was given to) then then you would need legal advice as to the DWP's powers to insist on that information from you.  I suspect a lot might depend on whether this is an investigation into the deceased's affairs or whether the DWP believe that the recipients conspired with the deceased to defraud them.

boingy

The other thing to add is that the DWP are somewhat renowned for taking an astonishingly long time to investigate this stuff and give a final decision so it's best not to distribute anything from the estate until that happens, which could be over a year. 

Keep_pedalling

Transferring money to other people to look after while claiming PC rink sound horribly like benefit fraud, so yes they are entitled to know where she was hiding her money. You did not say the money was gifted so as executor you should be looking at getting that money back in the estate so you can distribute it to the beneficiaries (after paying back any overpaid PC if it was indeed overpaid) 

km1500

as executor you can supply DWP the deceased's bank account statements and your own

you are within your rights to say you are unable to supply anyone elses.

Marcon

AgathaC said:

Hello, I am an executor of a family member who passed away last year. She was claiming pension credit for a number of years. 

TBH I don’t know if she was entitled to it as she held various shares which she cashed in during the last couple of years of her life then transferred the money to family members to look after the money. 

(10,000+)

Recovery from Estates are now looking into this and have asked to see bank statements of the family members accounts who received money from her. 

Are they allowed to do this? 

Not clear from your post whether the money from the sale of shares actually came in to your family member's account. If it did (and I think so?), then all transactions will be reflected in her bank statements, and I'd be pointing that out/asking on what authority bank statements of recipients of her largesse are being requested. Asking for bank statements of other people will require these 'other people' to give their consent, which may not be forthcoming...

AgathaC said:

Surely their purpose is to determine if she was eligible or not to receive pension credit. Not to ask where she sent her money. 

Indeed - and if her own bank statements show the fund movements, it's hard to understand what would be gleaned by knowing the recipients.

Mojisola

AgathaC said:

Hello, I am an executor of a family member who passed away last year. She was claiming pension credit for a number of years. 

TBH I don’t know if she was entitled to it as she held various shares which she cashed in during the last couple of years of her life then transferred the money to family members to look after the money. 

(10,000+)

Could she have had an Assessed Income Period?  My parents had PC and and AIP and when they received a small inheritance, it didn't affect their PC.  

It could depend whether she had savings over £10,000 when she claimed (and didn't declare them) or whether she received that money after the PC was in place.