Halifax bank and dwp funeral payment

[meand4]

Hi, hope someone can help me.

 

My dad passed away the end of august with nothing, no estate or anything, only £300 in his bank account.

 

 

He had 2 accounts with halifax

one with an overdraft of £300 which he had maxed and

the other with £300 of his own money.

 

 

We had the funeral and applied for a dwp funeral grant which they have given us £815 for the cremation and £700 for everything else but have taken £300 off because that is what he had in his bank account.

 

the thing is halifax took this money to pay the overdraft on his other account.

When we applied for the grant we included cofirmation from halifax to say that they were taking his money to pay the overdraft.

Dwp say they shouldnt have taken it because the funeral is the first thing to be paid off and not his debts.

 

 

now we have to find an extra £300 on top of what we already owe to the funeral director.

Can halifax do this, are dwp right in what they are saying?

 

Thanks for any help in advance

[dx100uk]

no DWP are wrong

bank offsets come first

[Andyorch]

No there not...its not a priority debt.

 

You should pay off the debts in this order of importance:

 

1.Secured debts, such as the mortgage.

2.Reasonable funeral costs and the costs of administering the estate.

3.Unsecured debts, such as credit cards, utility bills, unpaid rent, Council Tax and other taxes, and repayment of overpaid benefits.

 

They cant raid the account to get theirs first.

 

Andy

[dx100uk]

I thought raid at will as it was internal so to speak

great time to go complain then..

thanks

[Andyorch]

Thats what they would have you believe DX...but there is a process that must be complied with..and you know how banks work... they would snatch any gold fillings before internment

[neword]

Just out of curiosity How were you going to pay off the -£300 account.

From what I see Halifax have simply taken the +£300 that was in the other account and cleared off the debt that was on the -£300 account.

 

What you received from the DWP has not been touched

 

The Halifax has simply acted to protect itself from the possibility that you would have drawn the +£300 and then told them to sing Dixie for the overdraft on the other account.

 

I am not suggesting that you would have done that but merely that Halifax would probably have done what they did for to prevent it from happening

[Andyorch]

The family would not have been able to withdraw the £300 and tell them to whistle dixie...and what if there was no balance to withdraw ?

[neword]

So this is all about timing.

 

Current status as I see it,

Family applied for Death grant and received £1515 less the £300 credit in the Halifax account so were given £1215 by the DWP.

Then the Halifax took the +£300 shortly after and cleared the -£300 account therefore leaving the Family with just the £1215. So the £300 they had included in their calculations for the funeral was swallowed up by Halifax.

This then left the family with a shortfall of £300. What they now need to find.

 

If the timing had been that

the Halifax had taken the £300 and cleared the overdraft before the family had applied for the death grant from DWP then they would have received the full £1515 from the DWP and they would not have had this £300 shortfall.

 

Unfortunately I have seen on many occasions that benefits never take into consideration a overdraft and any overdraft that someone has is counted as £0.

 

As for the whistling Dixie I mentioned No doubt many banks and societies such as the Halifax have had this situation before and in some cases the family of the deceased have cleared out the account in credit and then basically told the bank or society to write the debt off as it should die with the death of the person who's account it is. I am not in any way suggesting that this is what this family were going to do but that the Halifax were taking the money based on past experiences where this has happened in similar situations.

[meand4]

Thanks for your advice so far.

 

We couldnt of withdrew the balance we had no way of doing that, we didnt even know that he had a balance untill we had a bereavement appointment with halifax. As for dwp yes it has been touched because they have deducted £300 from the total that will be paid to the funeral director because of the balance.

 

Do any of you know what would be my next step? Should i start a complaint with halifax?

 

Thanks

[neword]

A complaint against Halifax. Not sure here.

 

I suppose it would all depend on their TOS/T&C's wrt the overdraft as to whether or not they have clauses in them which allows them (halifax) to recover debts(the overdraft) from the deceased's estate (in this case the other account that was in credit).

 

So I suspect you would need to find out what the term's and conditions were wrt the overdraft that the deceased would have probably signed for before you could pursue issuing a complaint.