CPP death benefit

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- geo.nova
  
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posted
17 years ago

Fri, Feb 16, 2007 10:00 AM

Trying to help someone out here so I hope I'm in an appropriate newsgroup. They recently lost their common law souse who had a fair amount of credit card debt. CPP says death benefit first goes to deceased contributor's estate if there is one. Would the debt to the credit card companies be considered as part of the estate? Also can the credit card companies go after Canada Pension Plan survivor's pension? What about life insurance, can they intercept that? I guess what I'm trying to find out is how far the credit card companies can legally go to obtain this debt once a person in this situation has deceased. Thanks in advance,

If anyone can suggest a more relevant newsgroup for my question please let me know, Thanks

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- darkness39
  
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posted
17 years ago

Fri, Feb 16, 2007 12:57 PM

Hi.

There aren't many Canadian posters here.

formatting link

is a great place to discuss Canadian personal finance issues.

Also

misc.invest.canada amongst newsgroups.

My own thought is that this varies by provincial law (I'm guessing here) and they will need to consult a lawyer.

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- Paul Michael Brown
  
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posted
17 years ago

Sun, Feb 18, 2007 9:49 PM

Yes. Generally the executor of the estate is required to use whatever funds are in the estate to pay off any debts the decedent had at the time of his death. If the executor fails to do that, the creditors can make a claim against the estate's assets and the probate court will order the executor to pay.

You don't say how much money is in the estate, but you say that the death benefit paid by the Canadian government passes through the estate. You also don't say how much was owed. If the amounts are tiny, the credit card companies *MAY* decide it's not worth the expense of filing a claim against the estate. But there's no guarantee. The creditors are always entitled to collect on debts owed at the time of death, no matter how small.

Probably not. It isn't part of the estate.

Depends on whether the life insurance payment passes through the estate. Probably not.

It seems to me much depends on how much debt we're talking about. If somebody dies with two million in debt the creditors are going to try hard than they would if the decedent owed two thousand.