Does a debt cease on the death of the debtee?

In America, the debt would still be owed to the debtors estate.

To clarify on @judi ‘s response…. The debtors “estate” would mean the value of all the things that person left behind. I’m pretty sure it doesn’t like pass onto their children (although it could take a chunk out of their inheritance). Like When Michael Jackson died, everything he owned was put under the control of someone (probably his attorney), it was his estate. His children did not inherit his debts (which he had many).

The debtor is the one who grants the debt. The debtee is the one who is bound by the debt. If you owed money to someone who died, you would still owe it to their estate.
So the simple answer to your question is , yes. The debt would still be owed to B’s estate.
If A died, his estate would owe. If he were married his spouse would owe. If he didn’t have anything, his children would not owe.

The bills get paid off before anyone inherits any money. I believe the exception to that is life insurance, because the beneficiary of the policy gets those funds directly; it doesn’t go into the estate. But I could be wrong.

The question is if B dies.

@Judi, Thanks. I suspect this is going to be a long, tortuous day for me.

Can’t speak to Canada, sorry. In the USA, the debt is still owed to the estate just as the debts are paid out of the estate. It would be considered an asset which would pass onto the inheritor.

We have just settled my mother’s estate here in Canada and we had to pay off all her debts before the rest of her money could be divided up. Thankfully, she didn’t have many.

That’s interesting because here in canada I still get calls regarding my husbands debt whilst my MIL is sitting on all of the money! Please don’t ask :/

It is to my assumption mortgages and car loans and funeral expenses are first to get paid, some of those are things that can still be of value and money made from. Small debts are usually just a case of informing the debtor that B is deceased and sometimes they will ask for the certificate of the death and write the debt off.
Fortunatley you don’t have to deal with fraudulent, manipulative, family member A, that you thought you could trust and lead you to believe something else while seamlessly taking everything over then A and A’s lawyer state you are not of sound, mind or body to take over what was rightfully yours to begin with, thus forcing you to live under the Cinderella clause where mother in law plays the role of the step mom sigh
Now that you know I’ll put in place the do not ask clause :/

Say I borrow $1000 from you, and you die the next day. I still have to pay it back; but I pay it to your estate, not you. Or, if the estate is settled, then the debt is still owed to whatever beneficiary is holding the note.

In the USA the executor of an estate is duty-bound to collect all monies owed to the estate..

My theory on the matter is this. Once a person is dead and gone the bills go with them.

My step mother took a recent inheritance of my sister a few weeks before she died and put it in her and my othe sister’s name. The hospital bills are not paid and they were told that she was destitute when she died. I plan to notify the hospital. What can else can be done?

@silky1 With that theory, don’t accept an appointment as an executor of an estate.