My father passed away recently. Apparently he has become a victim of Boiler Room Fraud. According to his solicitor, he invested his entire life savings to to these overseas shares & lost it all. There is no money left to pay in the residuary which was to be split between myself & my two other brothers. The flat was left to my younger brother. The flat is going to be sold & split 3 ways. My father had a £10,000 overdraft with the NatWest Bank + he took out a loan of £10,000 to invest with these bogus shares. My question is this: The solicitor says the £20,000 needs to come out of the sale of the flat to pay NatWest Bank. Is this correct? I thought it would be written off. After all, we surely did not inherit his debts? Is the solicitor pulling a fast one here?

Many thanks
Richard

I am careful since I don't know your exact law for your country, here in the US, all of the debts have to be paid from the estate before any property can be given out, no it is not "written off" unless there is no money or property that can be sold to pay off the debts

Seconding what Fr_chuck said: I too am not an expert in UK law, but it would seem pretty obvious that your father's debts would have to be paid from his assets, before the remaining assets are distributed to heirs. You are not "inheriting his dedts" - you are inheriting his net assets after debts. Now, if your father had died without any assets that could be sold to pay his debts - then the debt would go unpaid, as heirs ar not responsible for paying off the decedant's debts. At least, that's how it works on our side of the pond.