Comment by hotspot_one | Hacker News Reader

Comment by hotspot_one | Hacker News Reader

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Under US law, the debts die with the person. You are under no obligation to repay your parent's debts. Now if the debt is tied to a house (mortgage) or a car (car loan), you might lose the house/car if you don't pay, but you do not have an obligation to pay. Likewise failure to pay will not impact your credit.

So if I die in debt up to my eyeballs, and if I am sole signatory on those debts, I have only hurt my creditors, not my family.

caveats-- if my family was counting on the house and I have an unaffordable mortgage, then yes I have caused them harm. Likewise other irresponsible debts.

-- at the end of the chain, creditors are also people. It is their job to loan money at risk, so their loss is their problem, but this assumes I was dealing in good faith when I took the loan.

The debts very much don't die with the person - the estate is on the hook to pay your debts before distributing to heirs.

Obviously, with some "it depends" nuance - but if the difference between this and your world view would make a significant difference to your loved ones, you might want to talk to an attorney.

Correct, but if you die broke, nobody else is on the hook to pay your debts, unless that person cosigned a loan or something like that.

Sure, but it would be reasonable to assume that most people in this forum won't die broke.

Dying broke is a goal for many people. And a lot of people who earn a lot of money still end up broke because they never really learned how to manage it and are easy manupulated by "managers." See esp. professional athletes, celebrities, musical artists who hit it big -- anyone who jumps from near or actually in poverty to very wealthy in a short period of time.

I am sure that there is no shortage of developers who hit a big payday at a FAANG or startup and then spent like it would never end.

Dying broke is the optimal way to die.

The definition of broke could be the residual after the planned distributions to heirs. Or if no heirs, dying flat broke makes the most sense. Getting there is tricky.

It'd be fairly easy if we decided to tackle this problem as a society (averaging out individual spikes). But we went with rugged individualism, so the choice is eating cat food or amassing ludicrous amounts just in case.

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