Am I Responsible for My Deceased Husband’s Pre-marriage Debts?

This area of law turns on specific facts, but here are some basics:

• The fact that the widow may have used the card during the marriage does not necessarily make her liable for the debt.
• The debt may be charged against the community property of the spouses, but the creditor has a deadline to sue or file a claim in the decedent’s probate case.
•  If the debt was incurred by the deceased in an earlier marriage was in a community property state, such as Arizona, the ex-wife may be obligated to pay the debt.  

Again, all of this is very fact specific, but here is some law:

• Arizona has a claims bar of 2 years post-death to file a claim against the estate or sue for a debt accrued by a decedent during his lifetime (” statute of repose”).  A.R.S. § 14-3803(A)(1).
• Schilling v. Embree, 575 P.2d 1262 (Ariz. Ct. App. 1977)
• In Re Estate of Van Der Zee, 265 P.3d 439 (Ariz. Ct. App. 2011) 

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