can relatives of the deceased be held to a tennancy agreement?

[Psycho Sonny]

There’s no legal will afaik and no one has applied to be an administrator of his estate yet. *His will was a "print at home" job any only witness by one person even though there is space and entries for 2 witnesses.

We don’t have a death certificate yet because COVID delays at the hospital, awaiting a post mortem.

He didn’t pay any deposit and I like I say he left no money. No life insurance, no funeral plan, bank account overdrawn, rent in arrears, utilities in arrears, a 22k debt packaged under an IVA. And worst of all (I think) he was self employed and I cannot find any accounts for the whole of 2020 on his PC.

11 Days from death to handing back a flat is not reasonable given the circumstances. ******* COVID. If all the companies are using it as an excuse, us regular people should be able to do the same!



2nd Edit: I have family legal protection on my home insurance cover. I may ring them for advice and see if they can offer any help or advice.

I just need to vent more than anything. This is just so stressful. On so many levels.

3rd Edit. I have life insurance as a condition of my mortgage. Guess what the exclusion is on my policy? “Stress related illnesses.” Awesome.

Sorry for your loss.

FYI home insurance is normally a condition of the mortgage.

Life insurance is just a suggestion they make and try and sell you also as an extra. It's not normally a legal condition. Because worse comes to worse they will get their money when it's sold or passed on upon death.

 

[Sasahara]

Sorry for your loss.

FYI home insurance is normally a condition of the mortgage.

Life insurance is just a suggestion they make and try and sell you also as an extra. It's not normally a legal condition. Because worse comes to worse they will get their money when it's sold or passed on upon death.

Sometimes life insurance is a condition of the mortgage, but it is rare, normally if its a high LTV with 2 or more buyers.

 

[JackRegan]

Sorry for your loss pal and its totally understandable wanting to vent.

It sounds like you're the one going to have to deal with your dads estate. As said previously with a letter of administration your duty is to collect together all your dads money/assets and use this to settle his outstanding debts like NickK linked to.

Whilst you're in the process of doing this neither any money collected or owed is yours, you are acting on behalf of your dads estate.

Once you've gathered everything in, this becomes your dads estate and you as the appointed persons settles his debts with the money you've collected. Any money left over would get distributed as per his will or intentions known to you. Howerver, as in many cases if there isn't enough money to pay his debts, it's up to you to notify his debtors of this and explain his estate (money collected/owed). It's then up to them what they do. They would contact a guarantor if there was one, examine your calculations to make sure they're correct and challange them if they think they're not, but more often they'll write it off as a bad debt.

You hit the nail on the head in your first post "reasonable" - things that were not reasonsable pre March 20 have now become the norm. Keep people informed of what's happening and time frames where possible is reasonable. For example if you don't have a van to move the fridge then book your council to collect it and tell the housing assocaition it will be gone by this date. If that's not acceptable to them, ask could it be moved elsewhere in the building? The housing managers storage area for example? If they really want it gone, they could remove it themselves and bill your dads estate - they're unlikely to want to do this as they will suspect thier invoice would go unpaid.

Most companies nowadays have bereavement departments which from my experience are very helpful and understanding and will send you information explaining how they are able to help. I'd ask the housing association if they have one? if they dont ask for their policies/procedures on bereavement and what support they provide. Depending on how far you want to take it, I'd drop your local MP an email or give their office a call, they will call you back. If you do seek help from you MP just watch the difference in how the HA communicate and deals with you.

Take care and look after yourself. Try not to worry about your dads estate, it is what it is and you can't change any of it now. Some people/companies won't get paid, not the end of the world. If they say anything, just point out it's only money they'll lose, you've lost your dad and then put the phone down.

Jack

 

[LeeUK]

As has already been said, it's not your responsibility to clear his flat out and you've made the mistake by getting this far with the clear out. Should have just took personal belongings/stuff you wanted and left the carpets and any old furniture for the HA to clear out. As you've already said the tenancy isn't in your name and you're not a guarantor on it so they can't hold you responsible for anything.

The HA could bill the deceased estate for the cost of clearing but as there is no assets and only debt, they wouldn't get very far.

 

[pp111]

I didn't read the above posts but everything becomes the responsibility of the deceased estate. This means that the estate settles everything, not you. If there is nothing in the estate then that's the end of it. You are not responsible for anything.