State pension after passing

Cheryl2022

etienneg said:

Sarahspangles said:

Cheryl2022 said:

Hi 
I wondered if anybody could help.
my grandad passed away on the 7th jan and he had 2 state pension payments paid in after on the 13th and 20th January.
i reported his death to deep as soon as I could which was on the 20th jan as there was a delay being able to get the death certificate as the hospital said they had been a lot of people passing away and that delayed them releasing his cause of death to get it registered. My question is will the state pension need to be paid back? Only reason I ask is some direct debits went out before I had access to his bank and so there isn't all the money there and he had no other money in his account so I am going to have to cover his funeral costs and I'm a single mum so it's going to be really hard to find the money at the moment. Sorry for going on and please don't judge as I am struggling financially right now. Thank you  

https://www.moneysavingexpert.com/news/2022/01/dwp-has--no-legal-power--to-force-you-to-repay-pension-or-benefi/

From the link given:

"When someone dies, their death must be registered within five days in England and Wales (unless the death is reported to a coroner), or within eight days in Scotland. The Government, in most cases, should be informed, which is usually done via the Government's 'Tell Us Once' service, run by the DWP." Did this registration happen?

"But MoneySavingExpert (MSE) has confirmed the advice given by Mr Lewis that people have no legal obligation to repay any money wrongly paid after the authorities have already been informed about a death." Did this informing happen?

These quotes are rather different from what has been assumed in other replies that have been posted. I don't claim to know the answers, but it's not good to rely on (or quote from) a link without considering its contents, as quoted above.

I informed dwp as soon as I could but it wasn't within the 5 day timeframe due to the delay in the hospital issuing the paperwork for his cause of death as they said they were extremely busy and that took well over a week then I had to register his death at the registry office so it was done as soon as I could.

artyboy

doodling said:

Hi,

The first point to understand is that you don't have to do, or pay for, anything at all.  There is no obligation on you to organise a funeral, "sort things out" financially or anything like that.  You have the option of just ignoring everything if you want to.

If you don't organise a funeral, and no-one else does then the council should organise a very basic one.  See https://quakersocialaction.org.uk/we-can-help/helping-funerals/down-earth/information-guidance/reducing-funeral/public-health

If you want to organise a funeral then you can.  As others have noted you may be able to get some help with the costs.  You can also use any cash or money in bank accounts belonging to the deceased to help pay the reasonable costs of the funeral.

What you need to think very carefully about is whether you want any involvement in administering his estate.  From what you have said, it appears that he had no assets / property and there are some debts (at least to DWP).

If the debts are bigger than the assets (I.e. the estate is insolvent) then the best approach is usually to walk away.  Don't get involved in writing to people, don't clear where he was living, definitely don't take or sell any stuff belonging to the deceased, just leave it.  If there are items of sentimental value but negligible monetary value then you could take these but otherwise leave it to others.

If there are more assets than debts then it may be worthwhile considering whether you want to administer the estate.  The important point us that once you have started (e.g. by taking or selling stuff that belonged to the deceased, or taking money for something other than a funeral) then you are stuck with the job so think carefully about it before you get stuck in.

And just to reinforce this point, it's very common for creditors or other "interested parties" to contact relatives of a deceased person to strongly imply that it IS their responsibility to sort out the estate and settle any debts. 

Councils and housing associations are particularly guilty of this, especially when they want a house cleared.

But as long as you have not started doing anything to administer the estate, please don't feel bullied by them. They take advantage of people at a vulnerable time and it isn't right.