Joint Accounts

• One thing to consider is whether the account was only in your father's name or if there was a joint account. For example, many couples put both their names on a credit card account. If this is the case, the debt could pass on to your mother. If your mother was not on the credit card account, she does not necessarily have to repay the debt.
  
  

Estate

• When an individual dies, his debt has to be paid out of any money left in his estate. This means that your father's estate will potentially have to write a check for the debt. Assets may have to be sold to generate enough cash to pay the debt. If the estate has no value, the debt will not have to be paid.
  
  

Inheriting the Debt

• Regardless of what happens, you will not have to worry about inheriting your father's debt. The only way that this could potentially affect you is by lowering the amount of money that you get to inherit from your father's estate. No distributions can be made from the estate to beneficiaries until the debts are paid off. This means that a large amount of debt could lower your inheritance substantially.
  
  

Debt Write Off

• If the estate does not have sufficient assets to pay off the debt, the credit card company will simply write it off. This means that no one actually pays the debt, but the credit card company simply forgives it. The credit card company might continue sending statements for a certain amount of time if they do not know about the death.
  
  

Executor

• If you are the executor of your father's estate, you should contact the credit card company to let them know about the death as soon as possible. It is the executor's responsibility to contact all of the creditors of the deceased to provide proof of death. You will most likely have to send a copy of a death certificate to your father's creditors so that they can begin the process of closing out the account.