Any experience dealing with a partners debt who has passed

Pepper12

Hello, 

My Husband passed and I'm trying to sort out his affairs. We own a home together and have two small children, I really don't want to sell our home or become homeless so any advice or support would be so incredibly helpful and welcome.

We own a home together which we are still paying a mortgage for, He has about £40k of debt across a few creditors all in his name only, two of which has CCJ's against him (which also I believe now means we are tenants in common as oppose to joint tenants as we originally were) he had no life insurance. I can afford to keep us going however the debt would put us in difficulty. Where do i stand with this debt?

• Would creditors write this off or expect this to come out of the house we share?
• Could I negotiate with them including CCJ's by saying i.e he owes £10k can I offer £5k? If so what do you feel is the lowest percentage of the debt I could offer?

Or are there other options for me? I feel so confused with what to do, i just want to do the best i can for my two children so paying as least as possible of this outstanding debt would obviously rally help us going forward.

Thank you so much for reading and any advice is so welcome!

Keep_pedalling

A CCJ does not alter the joint ownership, that would only happen if his creditors had managed to get a charge registered against the property. Has that happened?

if not the normal approach would be to write to his creditors informing them of the death ( include a copy of his death certificate) inform them that his estate in insolvent and that no one is administering it. Technically they could apply to the courts to sever the tenancy but that really happens due to the cost involved and with £40k split between 3 creditors it is highly unlikely to occur with your husband’s estate.

Did he have any significant assets other than a share in your home?

RAS

Sorry for you loss and the situation in which you find yourself. 

CCJs do not mean the tenancy of the house was severed.

Assuming that your were joint tenants, rather than tenants in common, you are now the sole tenant. Even if the creditors have gone for charging orders (do check the land registry, cost £3), the creditors could only have registered a restriction, which requires your consent to pay out.

Have you checked for bereavement support allowance, and whether there are workplace or pensions payments due, even if it's only unpaid holiday pay? Remember, he may have paid into a scheme long ago which is sitting frozen.

Hoenir

Keep_pedalling said:

 inform them that his estate in insolvent and that no one is administering it.

If there's equity in the property then the estate isn't insolvent. 

Keep_pedalling

Hoenir said:

Keep_pedalling said:

 inform them that his estate in insolvent and that no one is administering it.

If there's equity in the property then the estate isn't insolvent. 

If the property is owned as joint tenants it passes to the surviving owner and does not (apart from IHT purposes) form part of the estate. If the OPs husband had no other assets then the estate is insolvent. 

Creditors can apply for an insolvency administration order on insolvent estates where a joint property is involved but this is very rare and likely only where one creditor is owned a very large sum of money.

https://www.businessdebtline.org/fact-sheet-library/debts-after-death-ew/#:~:text=Joint%20tenant&text=When%20one%20owner%20dies%2C%20their,whether%20the%20estate%20is%20insolvent.

Flugelhorn

Hoenir said:

Keep_pedalling said:

 inform them that his estate in insolvent and that no one is administering it.

If there's equity in the property then the estate isn't insolvent. 

unless it was still joint tenancy and now owned by OP?

Pepper12

Keep_pedalling said:

A CCJ does not alter the joint ownership, that would only happen if his creditors had managed to get a charge registered against the property. Has that happened?

if not the normal approach would be to write to his creditors informing them of the death ( include a copy of his death certificate) inform them that his estate in insolvent and that no one is administering it. Technically they could apply to the courts to sever the tenancy but that really happens due to the cost involved and with £40k split between 3 creditors it is highly unlikely to occur with your husband’s estate.

Did he have any significant assets other than a share in your home?

thank you so so much for replying! Ah I have just looked at the papers and there is a charge on the property.... does that mean it would change to a tenant in common then.... and they could help themselves to the estate in that case? He had no other assests aside from our house, He is leaving me a pension with his work with a small lump sum, but i understand they cant take that from me.... the car is in my name and he didn't have any savings or other assets, i just looked and it looks like there are 5 creditors split with the £40k

Pepper12

RAS said:

Sorry for you loss and the situation in which you find yourself. 

CCJs do not mean the tenancy of the house was severed.

Assuming that your were joint tenants, rather than tenants in common, you are now the sole tenant. Even if the creditors have gone for charging orders (do check the land registry, cost £3), the creditors could only have registered a restriction, which requires your consent to pay out.

Have you checked for bereavement support allowance, and whether there are workplace or pensions payments due, even if it's only unpaid holiday pay? Remember, he may have paid into a scheme long ago which is sitting frozen.

Thank you so much for helping me, I really appreciate everyones help. 

Thanks for the advice on land registry, I have now done this and it shows that there are two creditors that have put a charge on the house, although it didn't say how the house was owned, i.e joint or tenants... I do know we did do joint tenants when we brought the house. 

I have applied for the bereavement support allowance which is now going through, and he has left me a pension with his work, which will be monthly payments and also a small lump sum which will help sustain us going forward. I do need to check in with his work on his final pay, thanks il check on his leave as he didnt really take any due to him being off sick - thank you so much!

Pepper12

A further update it says on the title register: Proprietorship register Class of title: Title absolute then both mine and my husbands name. Then under restrictions it says: 

No disposition of the registered estate other than a disposition by the proprietor of any registered charge registered before the entry of this restriction is to be registered without a certificate signed by (then goes on to add both the creditors names)  or their conveyancer that written notice was given to (then both creditors names, being the person with benefit of an interim charging order on the beneficial interest of (my husbands name)  made by the county court

does anyone know what this means? so sorry this is so confusing to me and doesn't help when my mind is all over the place at the moment - thank you everyone i really do appreciate it!

Brie

Sorry for your loss.

Have you tried to look at your husband's credit history?  That might give you a bit more info.

I do agree with writing to the creditors and stating that he has died and that there's no money available to pay the debts.  That in itself is true no matter what is happening with the property itself - a house is not cash.   In all cases deal with the bereavement team as they will be most knowledgeable about how to help you at this time.  At the very minimum I would expect them to ensure that interest or fees are not charged and any debts are not forwarded to outside agencies for collection.  They might state this is for a set period (60 days perhaps) to give you time to sort things out more.  

Also look to see if there is any employment contacts that can help.  The large organisation that I worked for had an employee programme who could help with various things from bereavement counselling, advising on what to do at a time like this and know all the groups that might be able to offer more support.  Unions or other industry groups may also have assistance available.  

Savvy_Sue

It would probably help if you had someone to support you on the debts, eg from https://capuk.org/ or http://www.stepchange.org/

I believe they'd write to debtors as well, along the lines suggested. 

Your husband definitely continued to accrue leave, even while he was off sick, so that should be paid.