Mortgage of the deceased

SueP19 · 4 October 2012 at 1:23PM

Hi I am hoping you can help me and I apologise if I am posting in the wrong place

My father-in-law died in July and my husband is one of the executors of the will (along side a solicitor)

He had paid 19 years of a 20 year mortage with the Halif*x

Upon his death we wrote to the mortgage company with a copy of the death certificate. In the letter we told them that the solicitor (giving the solicitors name and address) would be dealing with any outstanding monies owed in due course.

They wrote and offered condolences to us at our address

Since then they have written to "The Pers Rep of Mr....." at his address not ours

The general gist of the letters are threatening us with litigation unless we continue to pay the mortgage. They are adding an amin fee to the account every month

I am planning to write to them about this and wondered where we stood legally.

I know that the mortgage has to be paid from the estate once probate has been granted BUT I feel that this is very shoddy treatment by them because

1. The debt is not ours and they have transfered it to my husbands name
2. They have written to my FIL house not ours even though they have our address on file
3. He had nearly paid the mortgage off and this feels very wrong to charge him a fee when they know he has died

Thanks
xx

daska · 4 October 2012 at 3:12PM

As executor your husband has a legal responsibility to sort out the estate, including paying any outstanding debts. But that does NOT extend to him taking on his father's mortgage as a personal debt. And my first question would be whether there was any insurance to pay off the mortgage in the event of death.

Personally I think I would take all the letters into the local branch and ask them to contact the relevant department to ensure that they know who is dealing with the finances and send their correspondence to the appropriate place. It may be that they can't write to the solicitor until the solicitor confirms to them that they are taking on the responsibility.

NAR · 4 October 2012 at 3:22PM

Halifax have a Complaints Procedure - use it , complain and demand compensation. That is shocking treatment.

Fire_Fox · 4 October 2012 at 5:49PM

Usually you have life insurance on a mortgage, is that not in place? Are there no savings or disposable assets that can be sold to pay the mortgage? The interest portion must be quite small.

SueP19 · 7 October 2012 at 9:32AM

Ah thanks for the advice

The solicitor has contacted the Halif*x and had a reply, he needed the figures for the IHT form and probate

As for life insurance, there is none BUT he invested heavily and there is enough money in his bank account to pay the outstanding mortgage without touching the house or the investments

I will send them another letter demanding they cease the nasty letters and explain that they will be paid as soon as probate has been approved

I think I will also complain as they have not written to us at our home to discuss this matter and I will demand the charges be recinded

Thank you all again xx

getmore4less · 11 October 2012 at 9:16AM

Sorry for your loss

Halifax have messed up by not handling the arreers on a deceased mortgage more simpatheticaly.

The problem seems to be the executors have not made arangement to continue the monthly payments or have them suspended, which they should have done.

The mortgage is now in arreers.

Failure to pay will result in the interest getting rolled up into the debt, this may be the "fees" you are seeing or are there extra admin fees?

It will get messy if you are both(solicitors and you) are dealing with this the halifax only have to deal with the personal reps as a single entity, decide who is dealing with them and which address you want to use.

Did you make it clear in the first letter who the personal reps/executors were going to be? (not just solicitors will pay it at some time) if not the address may not have got on flie. They would then send first communication to the address of the deceased/mortgage, since there was a failure to make arrangments to pay the monthly payment, this was the gist of the first letter.

Having been through this with solicitors doing some and us doing some it gets messy if you don't get copies of everything since thing get mixed up and solicitors don't have the same urgency as the relatives/benifitiaries to keep things moving.

Suprised are you are not doing all the initial enquires(as you started with the notifications) for the forms this is where quite a lot of the fees mount up.

Mortgage of the deceased

Comments

Categories

Get our FREE Weekly email full of deals & guides - and it’s spam-free