Saturday, November 08, 2008

Are You Getting Dead Peoples Checks?

An old lady in Illinois was found to be living with the bodies of three siblings in her house. One of them had probably been dead for 25 years. They took her off to the the funny farm for observation.

There's nothing crazy about it. A lot of people do something very similar. Old people living together count on every penny of pension and Social Security money to make ends meet. When someone dies, they don't want to make cuts to already tight budgets. They just don't notify anyone of the death and the checks keep coming, usually by direct deposit, into a joint account. If you're careful and aren't shy about signing the name of the deceased, you can keep it up forever.

My wife had an uncle who did this. He and his life companion lived together in a small lake cabin. As far as I know, he didn't keep Bud's body around. I think Bud was terminal and receiving hospice visits. If this is the case, the coroner does not have to be notified of the death. If you go to a cut rate crematorium, they don't keep very complete records or send proper notification to the Feds. In any case, Hughey kept getting Bud's pension and SS checks until he also died. He needed the money. This was long ago. There was no domestic partnership at that time. They were together for at least 35 years. Nobody in the family is really sure. He just started showing up at some of the smaller family gatherings, introduced as Hugh's best friend and eventually became a fixture. Just two old batchelors.

How well fixed will you be if your spouse died or your spouse if you died? If you move to a vacation cabin with a privy and keep a large bag of quick lime handy, you may have more options than you know.

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