Mother died with debt and no estate. Help needed

As there isn't a will, you don't have any legal obligation to sort out the finances. You can arrange and pay for the funeral and leave any left-over money in her account and walk away from it.

Debts can't be paid if there's no money.

I know this is a difficult time, and it will be difficult to grasp the situation.

Do you know anyone that has dealt with this sort of thing before?

Legaly, no one is responsible for sorting out an estate even named executors in a will can refuse to do anything.

it is a volutary position that people can decide they will take up, there is an order of priority of those that are eligable eg(might not be the right order) named executors, blood relative, benifitiaries, creditors...

With an insolvent estate there is no reason to do the job unless you are a creditor and can recover some money.

Back to your situation,

Initialy I would stop at the notification of the death to any interested party.
(keep a track of any costs doing this it is a priority debt on the estate)

Telling people/companies is OK, be ready for them to try and get you to pay things, you don't have to

Are you going to register the death, if you do consier getting a few extra copies.

At this point I would hold off sending or taking in death certs before getting some advise on how to deal with the next step.

As I said before you need to establish id the life insurance is part of the estte or not before you get any access to the money.

same with any money in a bank accounts best to just leave it where it is.

funeral expences are a priority debt so you may be able to access the money for that but normaly you don't want to get it yourself, ideal is direct to the funeral director.

(even this is something you don't have to do but I think you want to)

I think an appointment with cab or other advice organisation is important you need some personal contact to deal with this.

Remember there is no rush if solicitors deal with solvent estates bill don't get paid for months/years so ingore any demands..


As for the flat if there realy is nothing of value then again you don't need to do anything you are not even resonsible for clearing the place allthough you might want to check for anything of sentimental value.

DO NOT PAY ANY DEBTS even if someone says you are liable.

heatherw_01 wrote: »

How do I go about giving them the left over money? Obviously once the life insurance pays out, it will be in my bank

You need to check is this is estate money or not.

The companies should tell you this, or I think they should ask you for some kind of indeminity if they pay out without probate granted if it is estate money.