Real Estate Community Forum

I have a situation where my sister's husband passed away and left her with a huge credit card debt of $15,000. There is no life insurance policy to collect from and she can not afford to make the payments with her min wage job and pay for her living expenses that go along with her home. So far she has contacted the credit card company and filed a dispute explaining that she never used the credit card and all purchases were made and signed by her husband. The credit card company investigated the dispute and as you can guess, they still require her to make the payments.

I feel terrible for my sister. She can't afford to pay off a credit card with a one salary income, especially with a min wage job. There must be some type of laws protecting people who are suffering from a terrible hardship in life. The only alternative she has so far is to file for bankruptcy which she doesn't want to do. She is so scared and doesn't want to lose her house. Are there any options for her?

I'm not an attorney, so I don't know the specifics, but if I recall correctly, the ability of a creditor demand payment from the surviving spouse when the debt is the primary obligation of the deceased depends on a whole range of things...for example the state you live in, whether the debt was incurred before or during marriage, whether the account is a joint one or not etc.

In most cases, though, the debt should go away at death. Unless, your sister continued using the credit card after her husband's death...in which case she may be liable for repayment.

For a more definitive answer, please seek advice from an attorney...perhaps the same one that handled probate matters for your family. Or you can contact the attorney general of your state. Your accountant and financial advisor would also be good resources.

You may also try filing a Better Business Bureau complaint against the credit card company...sometimes the "regular" customer service reps aren't trained to handle exceptional cases like your sister's...a BBB complaint would reach executive management of the company and the matter will receive the attention it deserves.

Thanks for your advice. We are planning to talk with the attorney who will handle transfering the ownership of the home into her name. He might be able to assist us further on this matter. However, we will not be able to talk with the attorney until mid October, which is the only date he had available on his busy schedule. So what do we do in the mean time? Should the family come together and make payments on the account till she speaks with an attorney? If she's making payments, will the credit card company assume she can afford to pay off her debt and offer no further assistance?

Another concern of ours is the min balance due. Since we had the credit card company investigate the account, we were instructed not to make a payment until the invetigation was complete. No further information was given so we decided not to make a payment. Then just the other day she received a notice from the credit card company that her min payment has jumped to $875 payable this Oct 1st because no payment was sent for 2 months. Along with that, a late fee was charged and an over the limit fee was added on to the account. We immediately called the credit card company and explained to them we were instructed by your company to hold off on making payments. We furhter explained to them there was no mention of the balance accruing during the investigation, but they didn't care. My sister was still responsible regardless of who told us what to do. Not only that, once the min balance of $875 is send in, the company infomed us her min payments will jump from $280 per month to $420 with an increse in interest rate and since the account is past due over 60 days, its been reported to the credit bureau.

I'm going crazy over this. Any suggestions on what we can to do till we speak with an attorney? Thanks!