Claim Against the Estate

Don’t get excited, it’s for less than $15. However, I am annoyed AF because these folks, who did provide a service, could not have mailed an invoice to the Island house. Here’s why:

In late January 2017, mom had a chest X-ray done at the Island hospital due to a persistent cough. I remember this distinctly because she had to leave a live music performance at the skilled nursing facility where she was staying, and was disappointed.

I never received, nor missed the bill from the radiology outfit that, I assume, read the x-ray. I did had 54.926 other things on my mind.

In our state part of the probate process is to run a ‘notice of death’ in the newspaper of the decedent’s county of residence, for potential creditors, once a week for three weeks. This Thursday will be the third and final publication. This sets a 4-month timer on claims against the estate.

The claim my attorney sent to me today was for a bill sent to an address the property hasn’t used, by 2017, for 24-years (TWENTY FOUR!). In 1993 USPS decided they were done with two roads having the same name on a small island. Mom and dad’s subdivision were invited to rename their road, and they did. That being said, you can still send a letter to “Last Name, Across the Lake, City, State, ZipCode, and it will arrive. The radiologist could have sent the invoice to the very old address, and it would have arrived. There is only one address with our last name attached to it. Also, I had my mom’s mail forwarded to me starting 2/1/2017, and never received the invoice. They did file with her insurance company…

I haven’t decided whether or not I’m going to call the radiologist outfit (it looks like they sold the original $11.05 debt to a collection agency!), or the folks who filed the claim. All it will do is allow me to say my piece (peace). It’s the principle of the thing. I have been a scrupulous fiduciary of my mother’s financial life, and to have something like this come up just pisses me off. 🙄 I’ll write the check tomorrow, and close the door on it.