Bonneville America Forums Forums Off Topic Discussion Forums Lounge Sorting out deceased affairs

I am in the process of sorting out my late mothers estate and find it almost impossible.

It annoys me that when you try and contact people like the bank and utility companies to divert bills or cancel standing orders, they have countless ways for you to tell them to increase your business or pay a bill, and they will accept an instruction from you on someone else's behalf.

When you want to cancel something, they refuse to speak to you about it and you have to write in giving proof that you are authorised to act for the customer.

You also get dire warnings from the pensions people about fraudulent claims, i.e. if you don't inform them immediately, and they make a payment AFTER they have died, then it is fraud. When they owe you money after overcharging for care provision for several months AND being paid in advance...it's is 'in the system and will take time to process'.


The worst one I had was when my wife died and I wanted to cancel her credit card. I had to call a call centre in India. The guy who answered it told me to ring a different number. When I did, it was answered by the same person !

He said that the other line was for increasing the credit limit and this one was for cancelling cards. I explained that my wife had died and I wanted to cancel her card ( I was the prime account holder ) he said..."I cannot accept your instruction I will have to speak to her". I repeated that she was dead and couldn't possibly call. He said "then you must get her to write to head office."

At which point I lost it and gave him the biggest round of f**ks of his life.

I got a call from the Card company the next day saying that the call had been recorded and I 'racially' abused their employee. I asked them if they had listened to the recording and they said it was with their legal department and they would be passing it on to the Police.

I asked them for as copy of the tape as I didn't racially abuse the man, but can recall saying something about resenting having to "...call some Indian sh*thole", ( on reflection, I was probably talking to him !)

After a couple of days I got a letter from the card people saying that they would cancel my wife's card and that 'no further action' was being taken about my call.

I phoned them back and asked for a copy of the tape and they said it wasn't necessary because they were not taking any further action. I said that I wanted a copy of the phone call anyway. They said they would send it to me. A few days later I got a letter saying that the tape had been 'wiped'.

Needless to say, there are many other CC companies out there and I have put my business with them.

I kinda know the feeling.....

My father in law and I have the same first name. Even shared the same address for a while. He passed on my birthday. My wife and I got married after he died. Then when we went to buy our first house, we found all of his bad credit on our credit report. Cleaning up that was fun!

I went through this on a much smaller scale last year with my Grandmother. It was copies of the death certificate and the power of attorney all around before everything got shut down properly. Luckily (?) she didn't have much of an estate, and no credit cards, so there was mostly just Social (In)Security, Medicaid, pension, nursing home and cable company to deal with.

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Needless to say, there are many other CC companies out there and I have put my business with them.

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Or not. Credit cards are evil. A wise man once said, "You play with snakes, you'll eventually get bitten."

I did a shortcut one day, and represented myself on the phone as my dead father, in order to expedite shutting off a credit card or the like. The credit card rep said, "Uh, Mr. Hitchcock, it's says here you're deceased." I replied, "Oh, I'm feeling much better now." He didn't seem to want to buy that.

Anywho - If it gets to needing an attorney, here in the states, the cream of the crop specializing in estate stuff are those selected to join ACTEC . Perhaps there is a UK counterpart? Nothing like a specialist to get the job done right (hopefully.)

I’ve been the executer of two estates. My mothers and my aunts. My aunt had a decent sized estate and for some reason never signed her will. She had never married and at the time of her death had eight living siblings. At the funeral I explained the situation and asked if they wanted to follow the will or go into probate. They all said we should follow the will and signed statements to that effect. She was giving most of her money to the siblings she had been closest to and that needed the money. One of her richer sisters later decided to fight it, rescinded her decision and threatened legal action if she didn’t get her “fair share.” She sicced a local lawyer on me who watched everything and was a major pain in my butt. Because of her I had to auction off all of my aunt’s stuff and divide the proceeds rather than let the family each take what they wanted. This really sucked as she had been the oldest and had all the keepsakes from their parents. I bought a few things of strictly sentimental value and sent then to my cousin who has been the family historian. Each of the siblings got about 100K except my jerk aunt who got considerably less because I sent her share to her lawyer who took out whatever fees he wanted. It took over a year to close the estate.

Two year later my mother died. She signed her will where she gave everything to us three kids and instructed me to divide everything more or less equally. We closed the estate in 90 days.

Make a will & sign it!!

I sympatise with ya, Brummie. I was the executor for my beloved grandmother. I didn't really have a lot of problems because a few years before her stroke and later death, she and I sat down and clearly wrote down who was to get what personal momentos. Another will stated her intentions with the property. My aunt, who is close to me, did get a call or two from people who weren't happy with the results, because they knew better than to mess with me! (That wasn't fair to my Aunt, though. I told her, after she got a couple of these calls, to forward my phone number to any complainers. I didn't get any calls, just an occasional grumble through the grapevine.) If you have personal stuff that you want handed down, I encourage you to make a list, and then name the person who has control of the list. Make it someone who can be fair and tough!

Don't forget to inform the tax office, they claimed around £50.000 off the Mrs when her dad died. and then they also wanted money from the sale of the house, at which they were charging at a daily rate until it was sold..

Talk about taxing the dead, even six foot under and they still hassle you for money..

My wife Trina passed away at the end of this last October, and I am still dealing with sorting out a number of issues. I was forced to get a Summary of Notification from the courts so I could close her business checking and savings accounts, but yet the bank had no problem letting me close her IRA account.

It is hard because every time I have to call about canceling each of her personal Credit Cards or other service that she had signed up for, it just reminds me even more of the loss. Hopefully by the end of March I will have everything taken care of.

I wish you the best in wrapping up your Moms affairs in a timely manner. I am sorry for your loss.

Tom

My Mom is smart. Every account she has including her condo also has my name on it. All the accounts have "or" not "and" so when that eventual day comes I just have to stop her SS checks and take my time removing her name from any accounts.
Brummie, sorry to hear about you troubles. You sure don't need more grief these days.

In case any fellow baby boomers haven't heard

It often makes sense to move assets out of ones possession in later years to avoid the title 19 look-back period.
My father refused to do this as he believed his care would have been lesser if he went title 19.
I strongly believe that is not the case. Who was I to argue? It was his estate.

http://www.larcc.org/pamphlets/elderly/pay_nursinghome_t19.htm

Medicare will only pay for the first 100 days of nursing home care. The next step past 100 days is for the feds to seize the assets of the old folks in order to pay for any care in excess of 100 days. Nursing home care at x-thou$and per week past the 100 day limit can gnaw through an estate's assets in very short order.

Money & assets of an estate do seem to bring the worst defects of character out in people. When I made a very minor request in negotiation by mentioning that one of my brothers and I had been the sole financial and otherwise support system for our parents for many many years, to the tune of well into six figures and thousands of hours of time, without so much as a penny or much more than a single hour of help over 15 years offered from the two other sibs, my sister replied, "Yeah, well, thanks for the history lesson, but...

I feel your pain brother. I lost my mom in December and I've been working through the same quagmire of cancelling credit cards, insurance, utilities and moving her stuff out of her appartment. The biggest hassle I've faced is her finances and bank accounts. Luckily, my brothers and sisters have been helping me and my sister had power of attourney. It's still a dreadful process and I hope to be through it soon. I hope things improve for you and try to be patient with these morons. Otherwise they'll make your life miserable.