Claim Against A Deceased Person

[Randolph]

Hello. Bit of a weird one, I’ll try to keep it brief:

My partner is currently administrating her late father’s estate. Just prior to his death, he had finished some repair work on his home, but had not paid the builder.

There was a deal of confusion (from the builder’s side, to be honest) over invoices, and in the end the builder is trying to claim for twice what he’s invoiced. Tit for tat etc.

We received, surprisingly, a letter of Judgment from court, in favour of the builder, as we didn’t defend the claim. BUT, we weren’t aware of any claim! Maybe all the letters got lost in the post.

Anyway, the claim itself is against my partner’s father, (Deceased)

As in, “Mr Albert Smith (Deceased)”.

The builder was literally in correspondence with my partner when they discussed the invoice/s. He knew the estate was subject to probate.

We tried repeatedly to settle for the original invoiced amount. We’re left with the prospect of applying to have the judgment set aside, or, possibly, that the judgment is invalid.

I think he should have claimed against the estate, or the administrator, particularly as he knew these details.

But, I have no idea really. It’s weird.

[atticus]

Debts owed by the deceased, including judgement debts, should be settled out of the estate before any payments are made to beneficiaries.

[atticus]

Just to add, this article may be helpful on the process of claiming against the estate of a deceased person: https://www.frettens.co.uk/site/blog...20has%20assets.

[Randolph]

Hi Atticus. Thank you for replying. According to the information/instruction on the link you provided, the builder must —

1. make contact with the Executor

a. by carrying out an online probate search or
b. if he already knows who the Executor is, contacting them directly

2. if an Executor does not respond, send a Pre-Action Letter of Claim to the Executor

3. Any court proceedings will need to be issued AGAINST THE EXECUTORS on behalf of the estate (or the beneficiaries of the estate if the funds have already been distributed).

~

The builder has not done this. He has issued proceedings against the deceased, at the deceased’s address, despite being in contact with the Executor, and failed to inform the Executor.

Would you be inclined to pay the Judgment against the deceased, apply to have the Judgment set aside, or simply ignore the Judgment?

[atticus]

Before it is possible to answer that question, there are a few things I would wish to know. To start with, how much money are we talking about, and do you think it likely that the debt is owed. It might be worth trying to negotiate a compromise settlement.

[Pezza54]

According to the article claimants should name the executors or beneficiaries (if the estate has been distributed) as defendants in any court claim
The builder has named a deceased person as the defendant. Defendants are expected to turn up to the hearing which is obviously not possible in this case

[PallasAthena]

Aside from the legal question of whether you can apply for a set aside on grounds of wrong defendant or letter of claim etc never received you need to consider whether the estate has a reasonable prospect of winning if the administrators/executors obtained set aside and the builder then re-started the action.

Any defence your partner's father had before he died is now available to the estate.

Bear in mind that now you know about the judgement you need to act promptly if you want to apply for a set aside.

Simply ignoring it is unwise. The builder might seek to enforce against estate assets if the administrators do nothing.

[Randolph]

Atticus: “To start with, how much money are we talking about, and do you think it likely that the debt is owed.”

An invoice was emailed to her father, on the afternoon of the day he died, as it happens, for roughly £8k. It states that it was the full and final amount.

We weren’t able to access the email account at first. Before we did, and some time after the death, the builder showed up at her father’s house while we were there. My partner said she had no invoices or paperwork. Subsequently the builder began referring to a second invoice for other work he had done.

We asked repeatedly, via SMS, for copies of all invoices. Over the course of a year, the builder did not supply any. In fact, he asked us to supply him with his own invoices.

In the evidence supplied to the court, he omitted his own original invoice, supplied the SMS thread with our requests for extra invoices omitted, and added an extra invoice which, in the screenshot supplied, is in ‘edit’ mode. In total he is claiming about twice the original invoices amount.

[Randolph]

Hi PallasAthena. I think the estate has a very good chance of winning if we apply for a set aside. We’d have been quite happy to defend against the claim if we’d ever received a notification of it in the first place. Our hypothesis is that when we told the builder we had no paperwork or access to her father’s emails (at the time), he thought it was worth pretending that he’d sent multiple invoices.

I think, based on the responses I’ve read above, we should immediately apply for a set aside. It seems a (relatively) minimal fee and from that point, my partner is happy to deal with it herself.