Daughter Stuck with Comatose Mom's Debt?
For those of you who enjoyed today's post on the woman who committed suicide after her husband was threatened with debtor's prison, here's another one up your bleak alley.
In a column by bankrate.com's resident debt adviser Steve Bucci, a woman named Nina writes of her mother's death while on a cruise ship. Although her mother's $30,000 in medical expenses were eventually paid off by the insurance company, in the months it took for the payment to go through, "the credit card company hit her account, even though they knew she was in a coma and subsequently died, with over-limit fees, finance charges, etc."
Bucci informed her that, thankfully, because Nina is "not a joint cardholder on the account and [her] mother left no estate," she does not incur the debt. That's good to know. Who wants to worry about the debt their kids are accumulating while in an endless coma?
Read more at bankrate.com —BRIAN FAIRBANKS
(Photo: Getty)
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Comments:
Well, obviously yes. You are liable for your debts, and when you die any outstanding debts are paid out of your estate before the remainder of the estate can be distributed to beneficiaries.
The old urban myth that debts are forgiven when you die is a misunderstanding of the fact that if your estate is insufficient to pay off all debtors, then the remaining debt has to be written off by the creditors ie. the dead person is basically bankrupt.
BTW - the headline of this post is blatently misleading. The post answers the headline question with a resounding "No". So the whole post is a non-issue...
Regards
http://enoughwealth.com
I find the opening sentence rather disturbing. How can anyone really enjoy a story about a woman committing suicide? One must be truly sick in their head to do so.
As I've learned over the years, most companies don't frankly give a damn about what condition you or your family is in. They just care about two things: $ and digits following that sign...
@krunk4ever: I think there were <sarcasm> tags that didn't get rendered properly around the word 'enjoy', or possibly "air quotes"
I propose the next headline as "Ben and Meaghan Axe-Murdered Their Sex Slaves?"
'because Nina is "not a joint cardholder on the account and [her] mother left no estate," she does not incur the debt.'
So does this mean that had her mother left an estate, the unpaid bills would come out of that?