If your family member dies why should the living pay for their debts?

[Jim Jeffries]

Cremate them yourself in the backyard. Saves you a boat load of money.

[New England]

If I take out a loan and die, what contract did my next of kin sign?

lets say you bought a house and don't have a wife. you croak. your kids are willed the house. the house is worth 100K, and you owe the bank 75k.

your house is sold by the bank, they take the 75 k you owe them, and your kids take the rest.

they don't have to sign anything.

[BostonGuy]

I don't see how they can force you to pay their debt, unless you have agreed to cover the loan.

This is true. Say for instance, my Dad took out credit card loans in his name and then kicked the bucket shortly after without paying these loans; I would not be on the hook for them unless my name was on the credit card.

As for burial expenses, it wasn't a debt to the deceased before they died so naturally the living pay it.

The TS needs to be more specific in his questions. Your generalizations are not correct...

[Russian Crushin]

Regular funerals expenses are a complete rip off to take advantage of people in a very fragile state

[New England]

This is true. Say for instance, my Dad took out credit card loans in his name and then kicked the bucket shortly after without paying these loans; I would not be on the hook for them unless my name was on the credit card.

As for burial expenses, it wasn't a debt to the deceased before they died so naturally the living pay it.

The TS needs to be more specific in his questions. Your generalizations are not correct...

you can be held responsible for his debts if he leaves you anything. sort of. lets say he owes the bank a grand. he leaves you two grand in his will. the bank / creditors will seize a grand of that. it's a semantic discussion to try and determine if that was "your money" that the bank is taking.

[Barry Halls]

It should come out of the assets of the deceased.

[jabsRstiff]

Funeral/burial services are not debts. They are......services you pay for- not obligations.

I have a mortgage I still owe about 35K on. If I die before it's paid off nobody has to pay for that, not even anyone I have on my life insurance policy. The loan is insured by the bank in case of such a thing. Not only do banks assess you as a risk for when they loan you money to make sure you are credible to pay it back, they want to makes sure you qualify to have that loan insured.