Social Welfare Consolidation Act 2005

• Permanent Page URL

Distribution of assets.

[1993 s280(1)]

339.—(1) The personal representative of a person who was at any time in receipt of assistance shall, not less than 3 months before beginning to distribute the assets of that person—

(a) inform the Minister, by written notice delivered to the Minister, of his or her intention to distribute the assets, and provide the Minister with a schedule of the assets of the estate, and

(b) where requested in writing by the Minister within 3 months of giving the notice and schedule of assets referred to in paragraph (a), ensure that sufficient assets are retained, to the extent (if any) appropriate, to repay any sum which may be determined to be due to the Minister or the State (as the case may be) in respect of—

(i) payment of assistance to the person at a time when the person was not entitled to receive assistance, or

(ii) payment of assistance to the person of an amount in excess of the amount which the person was entitled to receive.

(2) Notwithstanding any other provision of this Act, for the purposes of determining the sum which is due to the Minister under subsection (1), the means of the deceased person for the period in respect of which assistance was paid to him or her shall, in the absence of evidence to the contrary, be calculated on the basis that the deceased person’s assets at the time of his or her death belonged to him or her for that entire period.

(3) A personal representative who contravenes subsection (1) and who distributes the assets of the person whose estate he or she represents without payment of any sum which is due to the Minister in respect of—

(a) payments of assistance to the person at a time when the person was not entitled to receive assistance, or

(b) payments of assistance to the person of amounts in excess of the amounts which the person was entitled to receive,

shall be personally liable to repay to the Minister an amount equal to the amount (if any) which the Minister would have received if, in the administration of the estate of the person, that sum had been duly taken into account and repaid to the Minister to the extent (if any) appropriate, having regard to the assets of the person, and that amount shall be a debt due by the personal representative to the Minister.

(4) Any proceedings to recover assistance due to the Minister as a debt due to the State under section 341 (3) shall be maintainable against the estate of a deceased person if brought at any time within the 6 years beginning on the later of the date on which the notice or the date on which the schedule of assets under subsection (1)(a) is received by the Minister.