Who is responsible - individual or estate?

silvercar

Either:
1. Dad retained ownership with the agreement that the cousin could use the car while making repayments to the full amount. That way dad retains the ownership if the cousin failed to make payments.

2. dad passed ownership to the cousin with the cousins agreeing to pay monthly rather than outright. Effectively cousin is repaying a loan equal to the agreed value of the car while taking ownership of the car immediately.

the answer will be whoever currently owns the car.

if 1. Then either cousin makes the payments from the estate/ himself or gives the car back 
or 2. Dad is owed the outstanding balance by the estate.  

Presumably Dad would accept the money earlier if cousin’s wanted to settle the debt in advance of settling the estate.

Assuming this isn’t life changing amounts of money for anyone, I would expect in the nicest of family relationships, Dad to say to cousin’s son, ‘sorry for your loss, don’t worry about the money “cousin” owed me’. In a civil more contractual arrangement between family members, I’d still expect Dad to agree to wait until the estate is sorted. Cousin’s son has after all just lost his father.

ziggycj

sheramber said:

Is there a written loan agreement?

There were messages between my cousin and my Dad (before cousin died)
Then messages between my cousins son and my Dad (confirming a new repayment agreement).

If a new repayment agreement has been made, doesn't that mean that this element of the estate HAS been settled. The transfer of ownership has happened (the son now owns the car) and they are paying off the debt, but were doing this from their funds, rather than directly from the estate.

Brie

Perhaps dad should notify the executor of the estate that there is a bill outstanding.  Makes it harder to ignore.

Frankly if something isn't done I'd be concerned about son with car writing it off or selling it and then saying there's nothing to settle with dad as he doesn't have the car.  And I'd still be double checking that the car is registered to either cousin or son and is insured and mot'd as well.  

ziggycj

silvercar said:

Either:
1. Dad retained ownership with the agreement that the cousin could use the car while making repayments to the full amount. That way dad retains the ownership if the cousin failed to make payments.

2. dad passed ownership to the cousin with the cousins agreeing to pay monthly rather than outright. Effectively cousin is repaying a loan equal to the agreed value of the car while taking ownership of the car immediately.

the answer will be whoever currently owns the car.

if 1. Then either cousin makes the payments from the estate/ himself or gives the car back 
or 2. Dad is owed the outstanding balance by the estate.  

Presumably Dad would accept the money earlier if cousin’s wanted to settle the debt in advance of settling the estate.

Assuming this isn’t life changing amounts of money for anyone, I would expect in the nicest of family relationships, Dad to say to cousin’s son, ‘sorry for your loss, don’t worry about the money “cousin” owed me’. In a civil more contractual arrangement between family members, I’d still expect Dad to agree to wait until the estate is sorted. Cousin’s son has after all just lost his father.

It's "2. dad passed ownership to the cousin with the cousins agreeing to pay monthly rather than outright. Effectively cousin is repaying a loan equal to the agreed value of the car while taking ownership of the car immediately."

We agreed a new repayment agreement with the son and they took on ownership of the car. They started paying but have now stopped saying they will wait until the state is settled. But wasn't this debt settled (in progress) when they agreed the repayment? Someone mentioned earlier that the estate can't be settled until this is, so then what exactly are we waiting for. This is a secured debt so is supposed to be prioritised so we shouldn't need to wait for them to pay off bank debts first.

NOTE: The son was estranged from his Dad. He doesn't have any emotional connection, they haven't been in contact in over a decade. He's just waiting for his inheritance then we'll unlikely ever hear from them again. 

doodling

Hi,

I would treat this as a debt owed from the estate to your Dad.

Is there someone who is administering the estate in a formal manner (i.e. is there someone who has probate or letters of administration) or is this being managed informally?

If it is being managed formally then I would speak to the Executor or Administrator identifying what money is owed and why.  If that doesn't have any effect then I would send a letter before action repeating the how much and why and stating that you intend to take court action to recover the money.  That will prompt them to take the matter seriously and doesn't mean that you have to take action straight away - if you get a sensible response then you can work with that, otherwise you have the option to take legal action.

If the estate is being managed informally then you need to identify who is managing the estate and follow the same process with them.  If there is no obvious single person managing things then you need to follow that process with those who are getting the money from the estate.

Note that there is no point is suing anyone if there is no money in the estate, or the executors / administrators / beneficiaries can easily make it look like there was no money (this is not something that people are going to spend any time investigating, it will come down to whether people are prepared to lie to a judge).  If there is a house involved then everything is easy, if there was lots of debt and small sums in bank accounts then it is a lot harder.  Having said that, there is clearly an asset (the car) which someone will need to account for in the estate accounts so hiding stuff will be a little harder.

Bear in mind that all the above is something you would do if all the informal stuff (like talking to the various members of the family involved) has been exhausted.  Taking the legal route will have an adverse effect on family relationships and you may think that for less than £1000 that stress isn't worth it.

Rob5342

Your cousin owed money to your Dad, so when your cousin died your Dad would be owed money by your cousins estate and would have a claim against it. It's then down to the executor of your cousins estate to settle any outstanding debts, that takes a prescribed priority and if there isn't enough money in the estate to settle the debts in full then anyone owed money will only get a partial repayment or nothing. That's where your involvement should end, your cousins son owes your cousins estate money and it's down to the executor to recover that money from him so they can repay anyone the estate owes money to. 

In answer to your question then yes, anyone owed money by an estate does just have to wait until the executor has worked out the total liabilities and has gathered the assets. At that point they could get anything ranging from the full amount owed to nothing, depending the assets and other debts.

maman

There seems to be a lot of confusion in responses. 

Am I right in thinking that originally the car was sold to OP's cousin so the agreement was between the cousin and his uncle (OP's dad). Subsequently, the cousin has died with money outstanding. The cousin's son has now taken over the car and entered into a new agreement with OP's dad to pay £100 per month.

These payments have now stopped as the young man is planning on paying it instead when he gets an inheritance.

If I'm correct in my understanding then surely the agreement has nothing to do with the deceased cousin's estate but is between the young man and OP's dad. 🤔

Rob5342

The claim would always be against the deceased cousins estate. If the cousins son is an executor and was making payments then he'd be repaying the debts of the estate and it would be down to him to ensure that all creditors were being treated correctly. If he's not an excutor then he should only be dealing with whoever is. 

maman

Rob5342 said:

The claim would always be against the deceased cousins estate. If the cousins son is an executor and was making payments then he'd be repaying the debts of the estate and it would be down to him to ensure that all creditors were being treated correctly. If he's not an excutor then he should only be dealing with whoever is. 

Yes, I understand now. I read back and it seems the cousin died while his original agreement still stood. So the new agreement for the £100 a month is therefore an estate debt, not as the young man probably thought that he's buying the car instead of his late dad. So he's right to leave it until all debts are cleared as this one wouldn't take priority.

This still leaves the issue of whether he should be driving the car depending on the declared ownership and who's dealing with the estate. 

sheramber

There were messages between my cousin and my Dad (before cousin died)
Then messages between my cousins son and my Dad (confirming a new repayment agreement).

Can you confirm.


Did the son take over the car after the cousin died or before he died?

Who is the executor of the estate, as they would need to agree to the son taking over the car if it was after the cousin died?