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Debts After Death



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Sun Jan 23, 2011 1:51 am
Katriona says...



I am writing a story in which a man loaned money to an organization. Before the organization can pay back the loan, the man is murdered. So what happens to the debt? Mommy said that as long as the man didn't put something in his will about it, the debt would be forgiven. Is that correct? I can't find anything about it on the Internet, so any help would be greatly appreciated.
Also, what kind of paper work would they have to do to borrow money from said man?
Thank you for your help.
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Sun Jan 23, 2011 7:14 am
lilymoore says...



This is just me taking a stab at it but I'm pretty sure I'm close-ish.

Because this man wasn't any sort of formal organization he wouldn't have had to have filled out any sort of paper work to loan this organization money. Had the money loaned him money, it's a different story but situationally, it's like someone borrowing their best friend an extra nickle when they come up five cents short standing in line at the vending machine. You probably don't really expect your friend to pay you back one nickle, do you.

So the organization wouldn't have been obligated to pay any sort of money back or fill out any sort of paperwork.
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Sun Jan 23, 2011 9:04 am
RinSuru says...



It depends scopes of current legislation that apply to the question at hand. I'm no lawyer, nor law student, but I can tell you that "common sense" isn't always so "common" as far as the bound, written law is concerned. We are all only human afterall.

You would have to prove two things here:

That a claimed agreement was made between the man and the organization in question.
That the man willed this agreed upon repayment of debt to any heir.

On proving legally binding agreements:

Keep in mind that the highest "level" of legislation (typically the country of residence or citizenship) automatically supercedes any contradictions in all common laws and protections in legal jurisdictions under them. In the case you have seperate, but not contradictory levels of legislation, all laws of those that hold legal jurisdictions apply.

Say you have a signed document that is under the legal jurisdiction of the United States of America. Consider it states something like: "...the undersigned herein agrees with their signature, that we, the organization x, own their physical body and can use it for whatever we want...".

Such an agreement is completely null and void, even if the rest of it fits within acceptable national, state, county, city, and any other jurisdiction's applicable laws. If we ignore the vaguity and simplified form of my example, the contract attempted to make an instance of slavery legal, which is something that is outlawed by the US Constitution with all its ammendments.

This isn't entirely accurate to say, but legal contracts are generally an all or nothing deal. If one part of it is violated in terms of it's legally binding status in the jurisdiction of where it is made, it is all null and void. If it's a question a violation within the terms of a legally binding contract itself, it is the responsibility of the agreed parties in the contract to have detailed the consequences. Contracts will usually have seperate clauses that state the consequences of any breech of contract (as well as detailed information on what constitues a breech of contract).

If not stated otherwise, a breech of contract just simply annuls the contract with no further conditions. "No assumptions are made of anything that is not expressly [stated or implied] in this contract" Otherwise you have to prove meaning and intentions, which is the real meat and potatoes of arguing a a legal case.

On some particulars of wills:

Anything not expressly stated in a will, or that "survivors" can prove implications of being rightful heirs, becomes public domain property. In the USA, said public domain is given to state governments by the national government. In turn, state governments often decide what to do with it themselves, but may may pass on some control to more local scopes of government (districts, counties).

Commonly, everything not willed by the writer of said will is auctioned off for charity, and/or government funds. If it was not stated in the man's will, even if you've proven the debt repayment agreement, you would prove that he willed it to anyone at all. In the case you can do all of this, you still have to prove who he willed all parts of the repaid debt to.

Otherwise, I would wager that the organization in question is under no legal obligations to repay any debt to anyone.
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