quote:

Originally posted by cheesegrits:

quote:

Originally posted by eltonr:
not just any lawyer, contact one with elder law experience, may get assistance pro bono.

If the OP contacts a lawyer, it needs to be one with probate experience. The issue here is the hospital filing a claim against the estate. And yes, sometimes estates are all debt. The rules about debts, claims, and what a creditor can recover are completely state specific.

Yes.

I was executor for my dad and my brother in Michigan. In MI law, at that time, with a small estate the state set a threshold reserved for the survivor. Assets over that amount were all that could be collected by debtors, and there was a priority set as to what estate obligations got paid in what order. Meaning that if debts with higher precedence (legal, governmental, final expenses, etc.) exhausted all the estate's assets over that threshold, general debtors could not pursue collection and had to write off the debts owed by the decedent.

I don't know OK law (or even current MI law) but it would be worth having a probate/estate lawyer spend some time. It could be that the same sort of thing may be in effect there, which might protect your father and give you the ability to officially shut down the debt collector.