Q: My father passed away in November of 2017...I have lived with him my whole life and I wanted to ask a question
he bought the land..and has a line of credit through a bank which he put the home and land on and he still owes 65,000 on it and I called his bank and they are willing to work w/ me when I become administrator so everything would be transferred over to me...but he really has nothing, he left no life insurance, no ira, no nothing and he didn't have a will, I have a lawyer and we have to go through probate, and I know than that the medical bills, and creditors will come for me after this for everything he owes on besides this mortgage, and this place isn't even worth what it used to be, so to me the first thing that would need to be payed is the mortgage itself and even if I sold this I would still owe them like 25,000 but they said they were still willing to work w/ me, he had no antiques or valuables..and I am on disability so how can i pay anything to the creditors or hospital bills if I don't have it, and he really has nothing of value..do i still have to pay all those bills?
A:
The law sets a priority for paying bills out of an estate when someone dies. You mention having a lawyer -- if the lawyer is handling the probate administration for the estate, they should be able to explain the process of notifying creditors. In instances when an estate has little assets it may be possible to negotiate with creditors.
An attorney should be able to help you figure out what equity might exist in the house, which sounds like the only asset in the estate. If the house is worth more than the mortgage, then the creditors have a right to this equity before the property gets transferred to heirs. Unfortunately sometimes this means selling a house. However, if there is no equity then the creditors have no right to go after an heir personally to force them to pay bills. In other words, the deceased person's estate may have to pay people the deceased owed money to, but this debt does not typically pass down to family members.
I strongly encourage you to sit down with a lawyer with the bills you are concerned about -- in some cases the debts do not need to be paid, in other cases it is a matter of prioritizing based on the law.
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