Elderly mom's credit card
![[Post New]](/jforum/templates/default/images/icon_minipost_new.gif){kind=icon}
Anonymous
| She should give you the money now, otherwise I think the estate will have to use it to pay off the credit card bill. |
Anonymous
| Have her payoff her credit card bill. You can celebrate her life and honor her death without a funeral. That bill is just going to get larger and larger and if some hidden asset is found they will go after it. Pay it off so there is no worry about mounting debt while she is alive. I know so many people who beautiful ways to honor the loved one without spending thousands of dollars. It's about the person, not how much you spend. |
Anonymous
|
Her estate would be used to pay off any debts first.
You didn’t say how big the credit card balance is, but let’s say it’s $15k. Your mom’s $10k would go to the credit card balance, and the bank would just be out of luck on the last $5k. You and your siblings would have to pay for the funeral. If the credit card balance was less than what she has in her estate, let’s say $7k-then you would receive the remaining $3k after the credit card balance was paid. |
Anonymous
Her mother specifically said she wants a funeral. "Her wishes are for me to use the money for her funeral..." It's not about how much you spend, it's honoring the wishes of the person. In this case, a 95 year old has set aside money for her funeral - OP should honor that and do what is within the realm of possible with that amount of money. |
Anonymous
She can not make that choice when she has debt at the time of her death. The money is just not her heirs to spend...unless she prepays it and is ok with no cash option now. |
Anonymous
|
There are some BS answers here, so take advice from someone who has been through it:
When mom dies, use the contents of her bank account to pay for her funeral - keep the funeral within the scope of her available funds. In order to access the funds you'll need to be a cosigner on the account or she should prepay for the funeral costs now. When the next CC bill arrives after her death, call the company and advise them she is dead and offer to provide a copy of death certificate. Depending on the vileness of the person you speak to, they may try to guilt you into paying your mom's CC debt. Ignore them. There is no legal obligation and CC companies are daily exploiting poor folks, so no reason for you to feel guilt of any kind. They will write off the debt and get a tax deduction for it. |
Anonymous
| Honey, STOP PAYING THE CC BILL! Transfer all of her money to you now and put it in savings. When my mom came to live with us following a massive debilitating medical event, I realized it was stupid to use her money to pay her Amex bill. Who cares about her credit score? She won’t use the card ever again. And all she has is social security income and a couple of small life insurance policies to pay the funeral. At any rate my mom wants to be cremated so we will do the service where they skip the mortuary and go direct to cremation. My mom doesn’t believe in spending a lot on funerals. |
Anonymous
+1. Do this now. We did this for ILs when their money ran low and we were looking to enroll in medicaid |
Anonymous
Unless you co signed. Yes, when she dies, you’ll have to use the money to pay the credit card and the funeral. The funeral will likely be more than $10k though. |
Anonymous
|
PS - do NOT spend the final social security payment which she receives in the month of her death. The US government will be clawing that one back so you will save yourself headaches by not spending it.
https://www.usa.gov/social-security-report-a-death#:~:text=The%20SSA%20cannot%20pay%20benefits,for%20July)%20must%20be%20returned. You realize that in the absence of any real assets, your mom's will is basically meaningless. Her estate won't need to probate or anything if she dies basically impoverished. This is why it is better to be cosigner on her bank account so you can access the funds asap for funeral costs and be done with it. |
Anonymous
+1 on this! I’m the PP who said to stop paying the bill. I would stop paying the bill altogether and follow the above. I told Amex that my mom was severely debilitated and that we wouldn’t be paying the bill any longer. They will bombard you with collections calls and you just tell them to stop their debt collection activities. Amex has plenty o money and has practices that prey on people. Like their exorbitant late fees. And by the way I’m a banking lawyer so I know of what I speak! |
Anonymous
| Nothing happens, except the credit card company can put a claim against the estate. Prepay for the funeral costs now to make thing easier as much as you can. That will eat up most of it. |
Anonymous
|
1) funeral costs and executor costs are preferred expenses vs creditors.
2) payable on death or transfer on death or joint accounts all transfer outside of probate and are not actually part of the estate that creditors can go after 3) credit card debt is not inheritable, it is non-secured debt. it's not legal to garnish social security for credit card debt. she can stop paying now, the bank may call a lot but it will be written off. 4) direct cremation usually costs around $1300-$2000, depending on where folks live. There is no need to pre-pay for funerary arrangements UNLESS one is trying to spend-down for medicaid eligibility. |
Anonymous
+1. My BIL died with significant debt. We went through probate and submitted his checking account balance, funeral costs and a list of known creditors. Probate court published notices so creditors could put in a claim and closed out everything about 60 days after the last date to file a claim (funeral costs outweighed debt). It was very simple. |
Anonymous
I do want to dispel one myth - these companies will put in claims. Any company where my brother owed more than $1k did put in a claim and if there was money we were obligated to pay that claim. It’s just that the estate did not distribute assets because there was nothing left to distribute after funeral costs (ours were $4.5K in Moco, which covered cremation and transportation of the body/ashes). We held the service in our backyard because it was over Covid and paid those costs out of pocket. Be aware that if there is a gap between the funeral services and submission of the estate, you can only submit costs that occurred before the submission. In our case, since there was a gap of 5 months, we could not submit the service and internment costs (about $1K). |