My husband died without a will

I'm sorry for your loss, there is a sticky at the top of the page which has lots of information and will help you but if there is no money in the estate you don't have to pay his debts. You don't need a solicitor, its relatively simple.

Sorry to learn of your loss. Dealing with the admin after dealing with a loss is not easy.

Could your husband have had assets you are not aware of? E.g. a life assurance policy or a pension not yet in payment? If "Yes" then his estate may be solvent and worth administering.

If "No" (and from your opening post this seems likely) then the estate is insolvent and you should not administer it. The first call on any assets is funeral expenses - if he had any money in a bank account you could ask the bank to settle funeral costs directly - but if the credit card was with the same bank they would likely offset this first. After that your objective is minimal cost. In your shoes I would take photocopies of the death certificate and email/post them to the creditors as a matter of courtesy and advise them that your husband left no will, that the estate is insolvent and that you are not administering it. You MUST avoid taking/admitting any responsibility for his personal debts.

HTH,

One key thing with this is there is no rush to do anything more than register the death.

Everything else can be done when ready, it can help if you have a family member or friend that can help, anyone that is not so close even if they are not well versed with the process can help.

there are too side to this, sorting out yourself and dealing with hubbies estate

For hubbies estate you need to establish what is known as the inventory, all his assets and debts, this may take time as you go through paperwork, there is no rush but while doing this you don't pay any of his debts or pull in any assets.
Notification and closing accounts is often worth doing.

If there is nothing in the estate to pay off the debts then as previously said all creditors can be notified estate is insolvent and won't be administered.

If there are any dealings with DWP there will be loads of time as they can be very slow to deal with their side of things.


Some things are worth starting a bit sooner, the main ones being the paperwork to deal with your property(Council tax, utilities etc) and any joint assets/accounts.

Also if any benefits are involved worth trying to sort your out to retain cashflow.

One to watch out for if you both qualified is the winter fuel allowance, the qualifying week this year was 16 to 22 September so depending when 3 weeks ago was they may mess this up.