Our mother recently passed away and when we informed Yorkshire Bank we were told that bacause our mother had a current account with them in credit it would be transferred over to the Yorkshire Bank Credit Card to pay off some of the outstanding debt.
If mum had a credit card with a different bank, her debt would have been written off as there was no estate or assets.
If anyone can learn from this it will be a blessing.
I'm no legal expert, but surely if the credit card had been with a different financial organisation, the money in her current account that YB have nabbed would have been her estate, and would have been used to pay off her debts. In this scenario though the debts would be paid off in a particular order and the credit card company might not have got anything.
Why don't you think the current account in Yorkshire Bank constituted assets?
My sympathies for your Mums death however , what is it you want people to learn from this? Keep your credit card and current account with separate banks to make it as difficult as possible for creditors to get their money back if you die?
I was on the understanding that when you die your estate gets added up...then some of it is used to pay off any debts....then the rest goes out to whoever (ie follows the will)....or am i wrong?
Our mother recently passed away and when we informed Yorkshire Bank we were told that bacause our mother had a current account with them in credit it would be transferred over to the Yorkshire Bank Credit Card to pay off some of the outstanding debt.
If mum had a credit card with a different bank, her debt would have been written off as there was no estate or assets.
If anyone can learn from this it will be a blessing.
Condolences.
This is standard practice amongst UK banks (probably throughout the world).
It doesn't just occur on the death of an account holder either. It can also apply if an account holder is overdrawn/has credit card debts and also has savings accounts within the same organisation. Those savings can be taken by the bank at any time to repay all debts, but this only usually occurs if all other requests to repay have failed or accounts are particularly badly managed by individuals.
If in your mothers case the two accounts were with different organisations, then one would be offset from the other by taking from the estate. If no estate, then they would be written off.
