Jeremy Pinwhistle wrote:
Hi,

I am just dealing with the estate of a recently deceased elderly relative.

Since her death it has emerged that a year ago at the age of 76 she took out
a personal loan from her high street bank of £20k.

We are currently in the process of applying for probate, so as yet we are
not sure as to what the actual loan agreement contains, and whether it will
have to be repaid out of her estate.

Unless there was valid life insurance tied to it, I would assume it has
to be repaid. I think any life insurance would have been very steep!


It was not charged against her house which she owned outright and her only
income was her state pension. It seems rather irresponsible of them to give
her such a loan at her age.

That might depend on how the terms compared with a secured loan. They
might have taken the view that there was so little chance of default
that it wasn't worth the cost of formally securing it, especially if she
was in poor health, so it was likely that it would get repaid soon.