20 months ago I was the executor of an estate. I was granted probate and settled the estate over a year ago. I was not a beneficiary.
The deceased was involved in a minor car accident 3 months before they died. They processed a claim and had their car repaired via their insurance. I cancelled the policy 3 months after their death (6months after the accident.) and received a small refund on the policy.
3 months ago I had a letter passed on to me that had been sent to the address of the deceased from a solicitor requesting several hundred pounds from the deceased to pay for expenses relating to the other party’s car. I managed to locate the deceased’s car insurance docs and noted that they instructed not to engage with 3rd party requests for cash and to send all documents to them. I did this, heard no more from the insurance but have now had a further document passed to me, addressed to the deceased, from the small claims court. I intend to send this to the insurer too. Is this the right thing to do? I’m uncertain why this has taken so long to come through and have no clue whether the claim is legitimate or not - it’s for storage costs of the other vehicle whilst awaiting repair which sounds odd to me as the accident was minor and I’m not sure why this wouldn’t be covered in a claim - nor why the insurance companies have not settled this between them. Given I made reasonable attempts to establish claims/debts on the estate before I settled this, how do I proceed and what could I be liable for? It’s confusing as this was not my accident, it’s not my insurance and this request has come some time after the event.