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Death and debt
Kyougu
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
My twenty year old brother passed away this weekend. We are trying to get his things in order and I come to find out he owed about a Grand to a credit card. Any one know how this debt will be handled? Is our family responsible for it?
Kyougu on
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No, you won't be responsible for it. If his estate can pay for it, that will happen, otherwise the credit card company is out of luck.
Oh, by the way, you'll probably get calls from them trying to collect on it. Don't pay anything.
Sort of like a collector, if the creditor can't figure out where they have to go, you generally don't have to help them out. I let my mother's insurance flounder around bugging the rest of the family, when they finally found their way to me I just sent them a copy of the publication and told them they were two months past the deadline and could politely go stuff themselves. Some doctors will even drop bills when they learn the patient is deceased, since the insurance portion will still pay out, not that that's relevant here.
You're sort of responsible for it in a way. Whoever's handling the estate would pay the debts out of the estate or sell property from the estate to pay them, so nobody has to pay the bill, but it means less estate to distribute. Depending on the state some or maybe all property might be protected. When I did this for my parents, a house owned free and clear was protected and didn't have to be liquidated if the rest of the estate didn't cover debts, but a car wasn't and you could be forced to sell it to pay debts.
As for a $0 estate, if there is no money in the estate then that's the end of the debt. You'll likely have to send copies of the death certificate so get at least 5 of those. Remember, unless someone cosigned for something no one can come after you or your family for his debt.
When my great aunt died she had a zero funds estate, and we had to go through the process of presenting a couple of places with death certificates.
So like said above, have extras.
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I hope this goes as smoothly as possible for you.
Be sure your family knows not to talk to any CC or other bill collector. Don't give any info to anyone, particularly over the phone.
edit: Was he signed up for XBL or any subscriptions? Not really something you need to focus on immediately, but may want to send notices to any sites/services he had an account on.
Collectors will probably tell you or your parents that you ARE responsible and try to scare you, but you aren't. Actually, i think if they do you can sue them for violating the fair credit practices act (or whatever it is actually called).if you are so inclined.
Also, I am a bit relieved to hear that we're not responsible for the bill, as that was weighing a bit heavily on the family. I'm assuming that hospital bill works the same way?
If not. No.
If so, they may be liable for copays/deductibles/coinsurance per the plan, but I'm really not sure.
That's probably a bit different. You should look into it.
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