DH owed money for a job - customer died

[Needsomebloodyperspective]

My dh is a tradee he has recently carried a job out to the tune of about £3.5k the customer lives abroad and hired dh to carry out work on his farm. The farm is in the uk and has a number of tenants living in different properties on the farm. Dh has carried out historical work there and no issue being paid in the past. Dh was aware customer was unwell obviously not to the extent as he had now passed away.

As far as dh is aware there is no family so we are not sure what is going to happen to the farm and the existing properties on the farm that are being rented.

does anyone know what if anything dh can do? Thanks!

I suppose your DH might have a claim on the deceased estate if there was a proper agreemet in place for the work so the best thing would be to try and find the Executor of the estate.
However, if the deceased lived abroad it might be more difficult

-For £3 you can get a copy of the Land Register https://www.gov.uk/get-information-about-property-and-land/copies-of-deeds. Provided the property is registered you should get the owners contact address(es)

• Write to the property address and any contact addresses on the Land Register setting out the situation and enclosing an invoice.
• Keep checking to see when probate is issued as this will contain a contact address. https://www.gov.uk/search-will-probate

Are you sure there’s going to be a problem? When DH died we were having plumbing work done which ended up unpaid for 2 years. This was just because the company didn’t feel comfortable sending me an invoice , and as they were DH’s friends I didn’t know their details.

Send the invoice to the estate still so someone knows you’re owed money.

The debt is valid but becomes part of the estate liabilities to settle when probate is granted. He will prob have to wait at least a year as the probate office is still in a shambles from Covid apparently. That's their excuse anyway

Dh issued invoices before the customer died, there is no contract but the work has been carried out on the farm for over a year (ongoing electrical work).

The only reason he found out the customer had died was because one of the tenants text him to tell him.

Dh has been told there is no next of kin etc, I don’t know what’s going to happen to the tenants, the land or the farm etc no idea what happens in that situation at all.

It doesn't matter to you really what is going to happen to the tenants, the land or the farm. What matters to you is that the invoice is paid. I would stay in touch with the tenants as they should be contacted by the executor of the estate at some point. Once you have that info let them know about your unpaid invoice.

Who manages the tenancies? Maybe contact them and ask them to forward a copy of the invoice to the solicitor fir the estate?

He managed everything from abroad.

contact the tennant who informed you he dird who they are now paying contacting re the rent etc and address a copy of the unpaid invoice to executors of care of the contact provided by the tennant.

@Needsomebloodyperspective Some organisation or person will be running the farm. I agree that he should ask the tenants. It won’t just be left in limbo. He should then submit his invoice to whoever that is. Bank?. Executor? An executor will be in place whether there’s anyone to inherit or not.

Someone is probably monitoring his mail. I've been there with having to sort the affairs of a next of kin person who died without a will. We paid out on all bills from what was in the estate (after covering any funeral costs). If there is no money in the estate, it's not his relatives responsibility to pay his bills. Then the estate is bankrupt and no-one gets paid anything, so you may be out of luck.

I'd start by sending a bill to his address. It's more likely to be picked up by whoever is taking care of their affairs after their death. Otherwise someone above has posted how you can make a claim against the estate, if there is any estate.

Unless the deceased has a huge amount of debt you will get a payout from the estate to cover it, if there’s no relatives that can actually make it easier in some ways.
But it will take a while.

DH has lost two family members in the last year and probate took almost 8 months for one and the other is expected to be similar.

Just re-issue the invoices to the executor of the estate and they are required to settle
it if there’s funds once probate granted. They can’t refuse legitimate claims unless there’s no money, although if it is dependent on property sale that can obviously take forever.