This is a follow-up to a posting a few months ago.
To recap, I'm in the USA, executor of my now deceased, American father-in-law's estate (he died late Dec 2025). His English wife (died Apr 2016) was receiving a monthly DWP pension, which erroneously continued until late last year (Nov 2025) when I discovered it, contacted the DWP, and had it stopped.
Note: both had been living in the USA since they were married (a long time ago), so my mother-in-law was an ex-pat, receiving her pension according to whatever the rules were for out-of-the-UK pension receivers. My father-in-law never received income from the UK in any form. My father-in-law was in his 90s when he died. I do not know when my mother-in-law began to receive her pension, or whether my father-in-law was ever listed as a surviving beneficiary (if she died first, which she did).
Although I had the payments stopped in Nov 2025, I didn't receive a demand letter with a specific payback sum until mid-Apr 2026. The letter only specifies a lump sum in British pounds, with no breakdown of dates and amounts.
The demand letter also says, "we fully accept that such payments are not made as a result of anyone's fault."
It took a while, but I got the bank records of the deposits going back to Apr 2016, and added up all of the over-payments received in US dollars. That total in dollars is less than the amount asked for in pounds, using today's exchange rate.
Q.1 - Since I plan to pay whatever sum is agreed upon in US dollars converted to pounds, what could go wrong with that plan? (I plan to notify the DWP first that that is my intent.)
Q.2 - What is the rule (effective in 2016) about any entitlement my American father-in-law might have had to a surviving spouse benefit, and where do I find that? Or should I use whatever the rule is today (and where do I find that rule), since I'd like to subtract the amount if the entitlement is real?
Q.3 - Is there a clear (=unambiguous) rule about a statute of limitations that may apply? I've read something online about 6 years, but it is unclear to me how that applies. (I'd be glad to hear that the estate only owes the last 6 years of over-payments, with anything before that being excused by the statute of limitations.)
Q.4 - What is the significance of the statement, "we fully accept that such payments are not made as a result of anyone's fault?" On the one hand, that seems to recuse my role as executor from past liability of my father-in-law and his heirs; but is that saying that the DWP accepts no liability for any failures on its part, say, to detect the over-payments by failure to issue proof-of-life mailings, thus declaring itself immune from any statutes of limitations?
I ask Q.2 and Q.3 as part of my due diligence so I can report to the heirs that I did my good-faith best to close this estate obligation while at the same time minimizing the amount owed by legal means.
Q.4 is a probe into what is obviously intentionally conveyed legalese. It sounds nice at first glance, but I suspect it may have a sting.
Thanks in advance.