As long as your sister would cough up her share of any demands, you're in the clear. It's obviously riskier if there are more beneficiaries and perhaps not so close.
You (and the beneficiaries) can get protection from debts appearing out of the woodwork by placing two newspaper ads, as someone else said here. Last time I did this it was quite expensive, around 300 Pounds in total.
No, I will not. I am taking a very intelligent guess that the Whitehall Manderins will have convinced the Minister and Cabinet to tie such things up very tightly through the legislation governing the agence, with wide 'vires' for the Minister to recommend to HM The Queen in Council appropriate regulations, orders and statutory instruments to fill in the details. I am 95% likely to be correct on this.
The officials and their team leaders would have latitude in such cases and hence can return non-cooperation like for like. They can probably also garnishee the executor's bank accounts, income etc to recover the over-payments.
....at your peril!
In message , Robbie writes
I would have thought the law allows anybody to ask for just about anything.
Thank you for your considered response - as I suspected it was just guesswork. uk.l has always brought the barrack room lawyers out of the wood-work - just ask them to back up their speculation with some facts and you realise that they probably know less about a particular situation than the original poster.
Why from date of probate? Shouldn't it be from date of death? The DWP would be notified of the death in any case, if benefits are still being paid regularly, in order that they might stop paying them.
In many cases the decent thing to do would be not to apply for probate within the first half year anyway. It would look like lack of respect if the beneficiaries (or executors on their behalf) started the ball rolling while the body was, as they say, "still warm".
The DWP might know about the death almost immediately, but they will not know who the executor is to whom a claim should be submitted. Moreover, the rule is a general rule for the benefit of creditors of the deceased, many of whom would not necessarily be aware of the death. The grant of Probate is a public confirmation both of the estate being administered and of the person to whom claims should be addressed.
That's probably because the profile of the people that buy it is skewed very heavily towards those that think that they might have a claim.
tim
That's 300 Pounds just for the adverts!
The over-arching concern here is the giving of optimistic but dud advice which could get people into serious trouble. This is why various posters on this ng present grim tidings in response to such queries. It is a reasonable assumption that Government agencies dealing with taxation, welfare payments, etc hold all the trumps and the Ace of Spades (or have several Queens on the board) in matters such as this, and this is a good point of departure for considering the next move to make.
It would be of serious concern if someone landed him or herself in hot water through following dud advice on this ng. Just saying out of the blue that DWP has to 'prove' everything is just plain irresponsible.
Peter Crosland in his posting urged caution when considering whether to pull the agency's tail. This is sound advice. IMO his advice is pretty well always 'spot on' and deserves the greatest respect.
I have no problem when people offer advice which is backed up by specific examples of experience rather than gut feelings.
There is a difference between "you will be well advised to do everything which they ask you to do otherwise you are likely to finish up in trouble" and "I know of a case where someone did exactly what you are considering and x, y, and z happened to them"
To speculate that the DWP may let you off money owed if you co-operate; but will create trouble for you if you don't is pure speculation at the moment. We have yet to be told what exactly this trouble will be. An example such as my friend totally co-operated with the DWP and they let her off five hundred pounds over paid as a means tested benefit when the deceased had not declared some stocks and shares which she owned would be of interest.
This is uk.legal, not uk.my.speculation: no-one has referred to a law under which an executor MUST provide the information sought to the DWP, or a single example of someone disobeying their request and finishing up in "trouble".
Sandra posted
What was the outcome? Were there any undeclared assets? Did you cooperate with DWP?
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