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  1. #1
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    10

    Default Debt Collection Against a Dead Person

    My mother was recently involved in a bad head-on car crash on a local highway. She was alive shortly after the crash and was med-flighted to a local hospital. Unfortunately, she died within a couple hours of arriving at the hospital.

    My family now has numerous medical bills arriving at the house for my mother's treatment. Currently, I have little motivation to resolve any of these bills. What happens if i just let the bills sit for a while without taking any action?

    The requests for payment have been somewhat friendly to this point in time. Most of the companies seem to be probing for insurance information. A few have in big words on the bills that payment is due within 10 days of receipt. Obviously, my mother does not need a good credit history anymore so I do not care about any collections activity that might appear on her report.

  2. #2
    Join Date
    Sep 2005
    Location
    Behind a Desk
    Posts
    98,846

    Default Re: Debt Collection Against a Dead Person

    When her estate is probated, the administrator will notify creditors of the estate. The creditors will be given the opportunity to make claims against the estate by a specified deadline.

  3. #3
    Join Date
    Jan 2006
    Posts
    38,867

    Default Re: Debt Collection Against a Dead Person

    Quote Quoting bereavedson
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    . Most of the companies seem to be probing for insurance information. A few have in big words on the bills that payment is due within 10 days of receipt. t.
    Is there insurance that would cover some of these expenses? If so, then allow the insurance companies to pay what they were contracted to pay.

  4. #4
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    10

    Default Re: Debt Collection Against a Dead Person

    i'm not sure if we're going to have to probate my mother's estate or not. the estate is located in massachusetts and the surviving spouse of married couple appears to be able to get the deceased person's assets easily.

    we've already gotten a car titled in my mother's name transfered into my father's name. and a financial planner we've talked to said we could likely transfer the house into my father's name without probate too. all of the bank accounts were joint accounts with both my father and mother listed on them, so my father was able to either withdraw all the funds from the account or change the owner of the account to himself and me.

    Quote Quoting Mr. Knowitall
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    When her estate is probated, the administrator will notify creditors of the estate. The creditors will be given the opportunity to make claims against the estate by a specified deadline.
    yes, there is car insurance that will likely cover some of these expenses. it looks like the funeral home will be able to collect the $8000 pip payout from my mother's own insurance.

    the accident clearly was not my mother's fault and we should be able to go after the other person's insurance for additional funds. i'm kind of frustrated how this process is going though. the offender had a $50k policy for bodily injury, but the offender's insurance only offered $20k to settle. my mother was earning over $60k per year at her job, so the loss of income alone is much more than $20k. and to top that off, we cannot collect off the underinsured driver portion of my mother's own car insurance until we completly deplete the offender's car insurance bodily injury funds.

    Quote Quoting jk
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    Is there insurance that would cover some of these expenses? If so, then allow the insurance companies to pay what they were contracted to pay.

  5. #5
    Join Date
    Jan 2008
    Location
    Toledo, OH
    Posts
    16,307

    Default Re: Debt Collection Against a Dead Person

    You'd do well to hire an attorney and sue the other party.

  6. #6
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    10

    Default Re: Debt Collection Against a Dead Person

    we retained a law firm to deal with this matter a few weeks ago. at this point, all the attorneys & their secretaries seem to be doing is sending out boilerplate form letters. looks like the case is not a priority for them due to the 3-year wrongful death claim statue of limitations in mass.

    time will tell whether the attorneys will be able to get the insurance carriers to pay the policy limits or not without having to file a lawsuit. the attorneys that i've talked to said this wrongful death case would be a "slam dunk" if they had to litigate.

    Quote Quoting LawResearcherMissy
    View Post
    You'd do well to hire an attorney and sue the other party.

  7. #7
    Join Date
    Oct 2010
    Posts
    10

    Default Re: Debt Collection Against a Dead Person

    Looks like no probate required for my mother's estate at all. Here's a little update:

    -The house was owned free & clear by both my mother and father. Due to the laws in mass, my father was able to successfully transfer the title into solely his name without probate. The deed is definetly clear because my father was able to then transfer the deed to a trust and take out a home equity line of credit against the house.

    -Transferring the car which my mother owned into my father's name was just a simple transaction at the registry of motor vehicles. All my father needed was a death certificate and proof that he was married to his wife.

    -The bank accounts were easy to deal with because all of them had my father & mother as joint owners. So it was easy to either withdraw all the funds from the accounts or transfer the account ownership to me & my father.

    -There are a couple small stock market accounts listed solely in my mother's name. Mass law seems to allows up to $1200 of stock accounts to transfer to the next of kin without probate. But, we still have not dealt with these accounts yet. Probating the estate over a $1,000 in stocks seems not to be worthwhile because attorney fees will likely exceed this amount.

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