W
wonderinginiowa
Guest
What is the name of your state? Iowa
My wife died last year after a 4-month struggle with cancer, and the diagnosis came at the one time in my life that I wasn't covered by health insurance. Due to my income and resources, I was unable to receive assistance from Medicare, Medicaid, or State Papers. Still, assuming that the debt must be paid sooner or later, I followed instructions from the larger creditors (hospitals and homecare) to set up semi-reasonable payment plans.
Soon after her death, I consulted a probate attorney to see how we go about handling the filing of the will, transfer of title, etc. We established that all assets were joint with survivorship except for a small savings account for my daughter (that has since been changed). When he then explained that assets transfer but debt doesn't, I asked if that would apply to the medical bills as well. He feels that because the original bills were in my wife's name only, I would only be legally obligated to pay if they had my signature on an agreement to that effect. He then proceeded to file probate without administration to limit the time that any creditors have to file a claim against my wife's unopened estate and mailed notices to all of the known creditors.
So my question becomes: when I agreed to paying the bills over time and actually sent in the first month's payment (in addition to sending them checks for a part of the total prior to that), does that imply that I'm assuming my wife's debt? With one possible exception, all admission documents and financial disclosures have my wife's signature alone, and I certainly don't recall any documents indicating that I was agreeing to pay the debt in the case of her death.
Currently, my attorney has published the notification of probate without administration, and received some claims back, but I'm still getting notices (all but one in my wife's name) of past due balances and threats to send them to a collection agency. If anyone can provide a second opinion here, thank you in advance.
My wife died last year after a 4-month struggle with cancer, and the diagnosis came at the one time in my life that I wasn't covered by health insurance. Due to my income and resources, I was unable to receive assistance from Medicare, Medicaid, or State Papers. Still, assuming that the debt must be paid sooner or later, I followed instructions from the larger creditors (hospitals and homecare) to set up semi-reasonable payment plans.
Soon after her death, I consulted a probate attorney to see how we go about handling the filing of the will, transfer of title, etc. We established that all assets were joint with survivorship except for a small savings account for my daughter (that has since been changed). When he then explained that assets transfer but debt doesn't, I asked if that would apply to the medical bills as well. He feels that because the original bills were in my wife's name only, I would only be legally obligated to pay if they had my signature on an agreement to that effect. He then proceeded to file probate without administration to limit the time that any creditors have to file a claim against my wife's unopened estate and mailed notices to all of the known creditors.
So my question becomes: when I agreed to paying the bills over time and actually sent in the first month's payment (in addition to sending them checks for a part of the total prior to that), does that imply that I'm assuming my wife's debt? With one possible exception, all admission documents and financial disclosures have my wife's signature alone, and I certainly don't recall any documents indicating that I was agreeing to pay the debt in the case of her death.
Currently, my attorney has published the notification of probate without administration, and received some claims back, but I'm still getting notices (all but one in my wife's name) of past due balances and threats to send them to a collection agency. If anyone can provide a second opinion here, thank you in advance.