DWP chasing debt of deceased mother .

[Tenaciousbeyondallthings]

Can I please make it clear from the outset that I am after legal opinion. NOT moral or lay opinions from non legally qualified people.

My dad died in 2022. He had been ill with schizophrenia most of my life. I have 2 siblings.

He was in an assisted accommodation. He was in receipt of the highest rate of DLA for both mobility and care . To be absolutely clear , I had no influence or control over his money . I was not a POA or an Appointee to DWP. His money , benefits , rent were handled by a 'corporate appointee' (Social Services for the area)

We visited monthly but that was the extent of our involvement.

When he died he had left a very simple WILL.. leaving his 'Estate' to be divided equally between myself and my siblings. I was named as executor as I have a respected job (think nurse/police/ambulance) ..

It took a little while to gather his accounts .

After about 9 months I was in a position to make bequests. A total of £7k each.

1 year and 3 months later - DWP tell me that the estate owes them. £13k. This is because her DLA had taken his savings over £16k and he was no longer entitled.

Therefore owes £13k in UC..

The money was distributed 5 months earlier and spent .

They are pursuing me as executor for the 13k ..

My argument against this is that I had no control or ability to check his income from benefits was correct as social services were in charge of this.

My questions are :

How long should an executor wait before distributing money to beneficiaries when we had no idea there was a debt. ? I understood that as Executor I needed to pay beneficiaries in a 'timely manner'

If dad was not entitled to the money then surely the appointee is the one responsible. ? How could I know there was a debt without having previous knowledge ?

I have no debt. I do not want debt but feel this is unfair. I have written all the above to DWP but still receive the same threats of a debt collector..

Am I liable ? If I am then we (siblings and I have to pay it. But they are far from 'comfortable' .. one spent it on a car to get to work and the other on hip replacement surgery.. (so she could keep working)

What would be your legal advice ?

He did have the funds. She distributed them and they’ve been spent, hence her personal liability. Had she paid out the money owed, the estate would have been 9k rather than 21k and each beneficiary would have got 3k rather than 4k.

Have you approached his appointee?
I only ask as my DB has a local authority appointee who controls his finances. She advised us a little while ago that we needed to spend some of his money as he was in danger of going over the savings threshold.
It was useful for us to know, as there were several large items that needed replacing and we were unsure if he could afford them.
I would be asking his appointee how they planned to sort out their mistake.

@Nobodywouldknow I see that. I'm just disagreeing with the general statement that
" an Executor is legally responsible for any debts potentially incurred by a dead person's estate", because that isn't technically true. They are responsible for distributing available funds, including to debtors first and foremost.

https://www.timbrell-law.com/can-executors-be-personally-liable-for-the-debts-of-the-deceased/

"An executor can be held personally liable for the debts of the estate up to the value of the estate."

(I was looking into it recently because I'm an executor for a few family members - which I am now regretting agreeing to! But you can get Executor's insurance which might be useful.)

Hmm.

1)Op did notify DWP. They said after 3 mths nothing owed to dad, by them. But then after 15 months, they said £13k was owed to them, by dad. Is that timeframe 'reasonable'. I think not. Yes others say they have 12 years to come back and claim, but is 15 mths 'reasonable'. I think you could push that it is not.

2)£13k owed. Lets see what DWP breakdown says. UC is £393.45 per mth. £4,721.4 per year. £13k owed, divided by current £393.45, is 33 mths.They say they overpaid him for 33 mths? Nearly 3 years?

3)For UC if you have over £16k ineligible. £6k-£16k a calculation is done. Why did the SS appointee not notice/notify them that he was over £6k, or over £16k? As you were not involved at that point. (You will have to take that up with them, re the damage and costs that their mistake has caused).

So if you examine the bank statements, you can establish each date, each month at below £6k, £6k-16K, over £16k. How are DWP, or UC doing their calculation for how much he was entitled to, or at what point he was not entitled? Do then know how much he had in his bank account every month? I think not. Is this because they are ASSUMING he was not entitled because of savings (DLA which doesn't qualify) of over £16k? As pp did he have £6k, or over £16k for only a short time?

"The intricacies of how Disability Living Allowance (DLA) interacts with Universal Credit (UC) and whether it counts as savings.
DLA itself is not considered savings. It’s a non-means-tested benefit designed to provide financial support to individuals with disabilities or health conditions. So, if you receive DLA, it won’t directly impact your eligibility for UC.

DLA itself doesn’t count as savings."

Is that correct?

DLA is £108.75 + £75.75 per week. £184.30 x 52 = £9,583.60 per year.

So with UC and DLA of £4.7 and £9.5k per year, not being spent , due to being old, (can no one else see the irony here?) it could easily build up to £16k. But the DLA part is not supposed to be considered as savings. Is that correct?

Did he have any other money coming in from other sources?

I still think there is possible room to push back at DWP, or at least get the amount reduced from £13k, depending on what the breakdown reveals.

But she distributed after nine months and she only used the Tell Us Once service and didn’t seek confirmation from the DWP of any potential liability. So I think it would be hard to argue that she acted completely reasonably. If she had sought confirmation and had no response for say 3 years then fine but she didn’t even ask them and just went ahead. It’s well known that the DWP takes a long time to resolve these issues too.

She could try it and she could try getting the calculation revised but she should prepare herself for having to pay it. After all, if they had written to her before she distributed the estate, she would have needed to pay.

Dla is classed as savings if you save it, it's that simple really.

Dla is classed as savings it's just not classed as income.

Yes DLA is classed as savings

Yeah I don’t think they care about the origin of the savings, just whether you’ve got them. I know people are trying to help but it’s probably giving false hope to the OP by telling her she may not need to pay this. The likelihood is that she will have to.

OP when my.mum died we got a letter from DWP which stated very clearly in red lettering that they were investigating and that we should not distribute the estate. Then about a month later got the all clear from them.

Did you ever get notification they were investigating? If you didn't, that might go in your favour.

I think you've been seriously let down by the social services and the DWP OP and I would recommend contacting your MP as did a PP.

I think you acted reasonably as a lay person and to the best of your knowledge. DWP didn't send you a warning notice as they should have and that is a big point in your favour.

This is a bit misleading.

Yes, social services made a mistake re lifetime management of his funds & yes you can complain & contact MP.

However

OP made the mistake here. You cannot distribute estate before confirmation. DWP's protocol initial letter says "we don't owe you anything & we will investigate if you owe us". That puts you on notice.

You can't just decide you've had enough & distribute. You need that confirmation from them first.

OP will have to pay this back (rightly- why should she & her siblings get money that their parent wasn't entitled to at the expense of the taxpayer?). So OP should ask beneficiaries for money back & agree a payment plan.

@anonhop OP said

'Yes we did get a letter from DWP at around the 3 week mark saying that State Pension, DLA and UC had stopped and THEY didn't owe his estate anything. No mention of US owing THEM anything... until 15 months later.'

hence I said she was not given any notice of any investigation/potential debt. As a lay person I think how she acted was reasonable. The debt may still technically be owed but I do think she's been let down.

Let's say someone was receiving another benefit during their lifetime that is not means-tested. There was a small overpayment of that benefit to the date of death.

The DWP sends a letter out at that point asking for the overpaid Attendance Allowance/DLA/Retirement Pension (or whatever) to be repaid.

In that same letter it states the following...

What happens next

If any other benefits have been incorrectly paid to [Name of deceased] we will contact you separately about them.

If you are dealing with the estate we may need to contact you again if [Name of deceased] was receiving an income-related benefit at the date of death. This is because in certain cases we are required by law to check the details of the benefit claim. If benefit was incorrectly paid this could lead to a claim against the estate, but we will contact you if this happens.

So if the OP had to repay small overpayments of benefits at the start then she would have received letters about this and these letters do cover the possibility of a claim against the estate. Quite often people do not read these letters properly but the information is there.

You can't believe that an elderly person under council care hasn't been able to spend their benefits in their latter years?

My granny managed to keep similar thousands in the bank because her rent was peanuts, her food intake absolutely tiny (a tin of soup lasted her days), and her heating was always off despite her being very very cold. She never left the house in her latter years, unless in an ambulance after a fall. Where could she have spent it? Not exactly someone who was popping to the Caribbean every few months.

I'm only guessing what they said from their standard letter. Either way, you need confirmation before you distribute!! If you agree to be an executor, being a "lay person" is no excuse. Use a solicitor if you're not confident. OP tried to do the "cheap route" and unfortunately it's not worked out

I am a solicitor and I wouldn't recommend using one unless there's a lot of money or complexity in the estate to justify it. I don't think the OP was unreasonable in what she did given the DWP letter she received. The system has in my opinion let her down and she's left in an awful situation. Technicalities are important but so is recognition of the hurt and damage caused by an overly officious and hard to navigate system.

Really? You’re a solicitor and you wouldn’t recommend she spends 250 quid to find out whether she owes a 13,000 pound debt? You’re quite a strange solicitor if so, especially since most of the information in the public domain says that yes, OP is liable. Surely seeing a lawyer will give her the guidance she needs. And I’m also surprised that you thought the DWP letter was a sufficient.

As others have said, you are liable OP and should have waited to confirm that there was no debt owed before distributing. We had the same situation when my grandmother died, it took 2 years to get a letter about debt owed to DWP, they can and will chase it for I think they said 6 years (might be 12?). As executor it is your responsibility to check these things before distributing unfortunately.

Just about to say the same thing

For a low value estate with no trusts no I wouldn't in general recommend anyone instructs a lawyer!! It's not £250 because it's not an hours work for a cheap lawyer, an estate is a huge piece of work if done through a law firm.

This is a very unusual thing to have happened, you can't always instruct lawyers in case of things happening that you don't expect to happen.

Christ i'm validating OP's feelings because it's the human thing to do and it's horrid what has happened to her. If she had thought there would be a possiblity of a debt she may well have acted differently, asked a lawyer or held on to the money - but she did not know it was a possibility. Those unfamiliar with the DWP could easily think, great, I've had that letter, it's all fine off we go. As she's said the SS dealt with the claims so it's really reasonable to imagine that they would be very savvy and have done it all correctly.

OP just need a benefits lawyer to deal with the DWP - it won’t cost that much.

@Tenaciousbeyondallthings

Please see a solicitor. When I had to deal with DF estate [think 1960s] there was a requirement to "advertise" in "The London Gazette" and a "Local Paper" and after a period of time any person claiming payment was barred from claim.