I have lived as a caregiver for my mom fir the past 8 years and in the last couple took care of her bills as POA. Mom’s social security check was deposited on the third and her bills paid from it. Mom passed on the sixth this month and social security pulled back her direct deposit on the 15th putting her account overdrawn by the social security amount. What am I obligated to pay back?

Hi,

I'm sorry for your loss.

It sounds like someone made a mistake with regard to your mother's benefit payment. The payment that was deposited on December 3rd would have been her regular monthly payment for November, which she was entitled to keep since she didn't die until December. And, since your mother died after her payment date, her benefit payment should not have been recalled from the bank. You would only be required to return her payment if she received another payment in January, for the month of December. Social Security payments aren't payable for the month of a person's death.

I can only guess at what may have gone wrong. Assuming that Social Security has the correct date of death in their records then they should not have asked the bank to return the payment, so I guess it's possible that they have an incorrect or unknown date of death. I would start by calling Social Security to ask about that, and to see if they want you to do anything to correct the error. It shouldn't really be necessary, but since the payment has been returned they may want you to complete a request for underpayment form (i.e. SSA-1724 https://www.ssa.gov/forms/ssa-1724.html).

The only other possible cause of the error that I can imagine is if the bank has an incorrect date of death and as a result they took it upon themselves to return your mother's direct deposit to the U.S. Treasury. That seems doubtful, but you may want to check with the bank to be sure.

Best, Jerry