Residential client dies owing me $350

[nerd2u]

I'm 28 and have a will and power of Attorney documents drawn up handling everything and appointing people should anything happen to me.

Power of Attorney is important because a will only takes over after death.

Sent from my SM-G870W using Tapatalk

 

[G8racingfool]

Timeshifter, I don't know where you're from, but in Kentucky, if someone dies without a will, it goes to the courts. Everything is frozen while bills come in, and someone is appointed to handle things. Any income (insurance policies, interest, etc) goes into an account that can't be touched till everything is resolved. Assets are dissolved (cars, houses, 401K/IRA, etc). All the bills are paid, and then the court divies up what's left...the court determines who gets what. This can take six months to a year.

Without trying to collect the debt, you can't claim it as a loss....you can't just 'write it off'...though you CAN forget about it.

I'm sorry for your loss...while not exactly a friend of yours, it sounds like you were closer to this fellow than some of us are to our clients.

If nothing else, this should be a lesson to us all to have a will. It's not that expensive and this way you can determine what happens to your stuff instead of letting a judge decide.

Pretty much this. There's almost always an estate of some kind will or no will. You'll need to make sure you have an invoice sent to that estate (usually mail sent to the residents address will be forwarded to it or, if it's a client in a nursing home, you can contact them and they can usually tell you who's handling the clients affairs) and that invoice will then get paid out of the remaining estate assets. This happens before any sons, daughters or other relatives even sniff any remaining money.

Now fair warning, it may take a little while to get paid out of an estate and estates usually pay the bills by total, highest to lowest so your $350 is going to most likely fall behind medical bills, hospice care, and probably a bunch of other things. If there is no money left by the time they get to you then you probably won't get paid (nobody gets an inheritance either but that's besides the point). At that point however, you can say that you made an attempt to recover that money and write it off as bad debt.

 

[callthatgirl]

I'd be just letting this one go. Lesson learned, invoices only leave you without money. I can't stress this enough, get a credit card for every job, every time, every ticket. Your worries are gone. RIP client.

 

[Comptex]

I wouldn’t sweat it. Especially if he helped pay a few bills over time.