When a close family member or relative dies, the last thing you want to deal with is their financial obligations, especially when you’re still grieving for their loss.

However, housing associations can be very insensitive about this and will bother you about late payments or other balances that need to be paid.

So, here’s what OP did which forced the HA to pay him back for his overpayment.

Housing association wants me to pay my late aunties’ debt? No, pay me the money I overpaid instead.

Before I lived in my current place, I was living with my auntie.

She was the main tenant who sorted the bills, and I would pay her a lump sum each month as board payments.

Unfortunately, OP’s auntie passed away and the place was left to him.

In early 2021, she passed away unexpectedly. Naturally, I didn’t want to continue living in this place.

Bad memories and bearing the responsibility for an entire place alone wasn’t feasible for me financially at the time.

After speaking with the housing association, I was informed the only way to end the tenancy would be by getting the tenancy agreement moved over into my name, before terminating the tenancy when I was ready to move out.

He found out that his auntie was behind her rent payments.

What I didn’t know at this point was that my auntie was in arrears on the rent payments.

When it came to the point of leaving the tenancy, I had money in savings and just settled up the rent entirely (paying ~£500 of my aunties’ arrears on top of the rent I personally owed from living there alone).

I then stayed at the place for a few more weeks before closing the tenancy.

In hindsight, I probably should’ve ueried the payment, but at that point I just wanted rid of the place.

Even after paying up, the housing association continued to annoy him with the balance due.

After moving into my new place, I was getting pestered by the housing association who said I still owed ~£300 on the previous house.

There was a lot of back and forth, before I then asked for a copy of the rent statement.

It was around this time that I was speaking to people about this money I supposedly owed, when I was informed that I ‘probably’ shouldn’t be liable for my aunties’ debt as I didn’t receive the estate, and was not the next of kin.

However, there was also an argument to be made that I was liable for the debt, as technically my name was on the agreement, and I became the main tenant.

So, he reviewed the rent statement and made his own calculations.

With this information in mind, I looked at the rent statement, worked out how much money I owed from the first week after my auntie had passed, and deducted it from my total rent payments made after that point.

It turned out I had paid ~£200 extra (assuming I wasn’t liable for the debt).

I presented all my working out in a thorough email and sent it over.

He thought it was over.

I didn’t hear anything back from them after that conveniently and assumed it was all over.

I decided not to pursue this as I was sick of being pestered by them, and I wasn’t 100% sure if I was or wasn’t liable for this money.

But he received another letter from them.

Fast forward nearly 2 years, I receive a letter last month, just before Christmas, stating that I still owed this ~£300 and that it would be sent to debt collectors if nothing was done.

At this point I was pissed off.

I spoke to someone who was able to tell me for sure that I am not liable for the debt in this particular situation.

OP did what he had to do to stop the harassment once and for all.

So, I sent a firmly written email detailing how I don’t owe this money, but in fact they owed me. I provided all the evidence and threatened small claims if the situation wasn’t rectified soon.

It took weeks of me pestering them via phone calls and emails for me to be get in contact with a lovely woman who apologised on behalf of the company on how I was treated.

She then got the ball rolling and eventually my ~£200 refund cleared the other day.

This was a particularly satisfying end because, if they would’ve just left it, I wouldn’t have chased it up and they would be £200 better off.

What a shame!

Let’s find out what other Reddit users have to say about this.

This user implies that OP could have asked or done more.

Here’s another suggestion from one user.

This user shares an experience and some thoughts on the matter.

Here’s an interesting information.

What a sad reality!

Never let the HA bully you!

Kudos to OP for standing up for yourself.

If you liked that story, check out this post about a group of employees who got together and why working from home was a good financial decision.