CoSign - what happens after death? - myFICO® Forums

Anonymous · ‎03-15-2022

What happens when a co-signor signs to help you get a CC, and he or she dies, will she still remain on the card, or will the issuing bank remove said person

DONZI · ‎03-16-2022

Got a specific card you can name? Maybe the terms and agreements are online.

I've seen such things covered within the legal documents IIRC. That would maybe clarify some of what to expect.

The deceased won't be removed, I'd imagine, without someone sending a certificate of death. If that happens maybe the card will be transitioned to your name only, maybe it will be closed.. My guess is that the issuer will have reserved the final say on what happens after consideration of their legal docs and those of the state regarding death, debt, and all that remains of the deceased's lifetime.

If they had end of life documents (trust, will, etc) those may come into play also.

Hopefully the card will ultimately become your responsibility alone without complications.

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805orbust · ‎03-16-2022

I'll do some digging but there was someone here who was AU on a Discover card and when the account holder passed they transferred ownership to the AU. Was it you @SoCalGardener ? I can't remember.

coldfusion · ‎03-16-2022

@Anonymous wrote:
What happens when a co-signor signs to help you get a CC, and he or she dies, will she still remain on the card, or will the issuing bank remove said person

This is really a question for the card issuer and the cardholders' and the estate's attorneys to answer. Each issuer will have their own policies to follow based on legal intepretation of the relevant laws and the specifics of the related card agreement, and while one of the typical duties of an executor is to notify creditors and settle the deceased's final debts this is possibly a senario where the cardholder has a legal responsibilty to notify the issuer of the cosigners death.

Feedback given on forums other than possibly from an attorney with relevent expertise (and which I am not) is really going to be speculative at best.

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SoCalGardener · ‎03-16-2022

Yes, it was me--I 'inherited' my mom's Discover card when she died. However...

We were not co-signers on the account. It was *her* account, which I had nothing to do with, not even as an AU. After she died, I called Discover to inform them and find out what paperwork they needed to make her death official, and to close the account and send me the final statement. It was at that point that the CSR asked me if I'd like to transfer the card to my name...

I'm no attorney, but I'm pretty sure deceased people cannot remain on debts, so for the OP's situation, the deceased will have to be removed as a co-signer. And I don't think you can get around that by not notifying them--they have ways of finding out. Companies I never even contacted [because I knew they were not important, like creditors would be] wrote expressing their condolences and telling me my mom had been removed from....whatever it was. The SS death index has something to do with this.

My suggestion to the OP is to contact the creditor ASAP and inform them of the co-signer's death. Find out what their protocol is and go from there. Hopefully, this won't result in closure of the account, but, again, don't mistakenly think you can skirt this by not contacting them, because they *will* eventually find out, and then you could be in trouble.