Regular readers will probably recall the horrors that I suffered in dealing with my dad's estate a few years ago. People living in Bermuda with British parents often only come to grips with such matters when the second parent dies and they have to deal, usually at a distance, with the British bureaucracy. It's as awful an experience as is imaginable, even when it need not be.

A highly respectable reader wrote an e-mail to everyone he knew who might "be involved in the administration of the will or estate of a loved one in the UK" and sent me a copy. He wrote that his mother had died early this year, having appointed him to be the executor of her will. He continued: "At the time of her death, the funeral directors had, within 48 hours, routinely notified the Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) of her death and the date.

Subsequently, having failed to act on this notification, the DWP continued to pay my mother's regular weekly (pension) into her bank account for several weeks. That regular amount consisted of pension credit and attendance allowance, both of which my mother had received every week for many years.

Over several subsequent months, and whilst dealing with the estate, I received letters from the DWP "Debt Centre" and "Debt Management Dept.", and the "Recovery from Estates' Department". These letters were pointedly aimed at demanding from me the amounts which they had wrongly overpaid. They stated that the enquiries could lead to a claim against the estate.

They went on to say: 'We strongly advise you not to distribute the estate. If you do you may have to pay back the money yourself'. I assumed that these amounts were properly refundable and I paid them over.

By July, I had managed to sell my mother's house, collect her other modest assets, and pay the debts. As I had diligently refunded to the DWP all amounts which they had claimed in respect of Pension and Attendance Allowance, I believed I was in a position to finally distribute the estate to the various beneficiaries. I did so.

Please bear in mind that the distributions were not my money. It was money due to the beneficiaries of my mother's estate.

In the midst of all this, I had to satisfy the Department that my mother (suffering from Alzheimer's Disease and senile dementia) had not somehow set out to cheat the DWP by contriving and submitting false benefit claims. I was able to satisfy them that my mother had not done so and I received written confirmation from the Department to this effect.

After I had distributed the estate in July, I received a very late letter from the DWP. This time, it concerned basic contributory pension. Again, they were demanding the repayment of their portion of payments they had erroneously made after they had been informed of my mother's death. But this time it was different. This time, I had to explain that the estate had already been distributed and I had nothing left with which to refund them anything.

Surprisingly, during the course of that conversation the person I was dealing with admitted that the Department had no legal right to claim back any amount of overpaid contributory pension or any other benefit. In fact, he said, the DWP had no right to claim back any amount of overpaid benefit of any description. It was not a debt of the estate. They could not and would not make any legal claim against any estate in UK in respect of amounts paid to persons after the Department had been informed of their death (no matter what they might assert or claim in their correspondence).

This means that the avalanche of demanding letters which I (and thousands of people in my position) have received ARE A COMPLETE FRAUD BY THE DWP (reader's emphasis). It was their fault that they made the overpayments. They are not entitled to demand anything back from the executors or estates of deceased persons. This is particularly galling because I had already refunded all those amounts which I had been given to understand were due and payable to DWP. You can and should ignore their threats both presently and in future. After settling the nursing home bills, there was very little left in my mother's estate to go the way she wanted it to go. I know that I am beginning to sound like the typical retired Colonel complaining in a letter to The Daily Telegraph, and that grieves me because I am nothing like that. But I think it important to tell you that a Department of Government is engaging in a significant fraud against the estates of those citizens who have experienced the Department's worst inefficiencies.

I find that I paid several hundred pounds to a UK Government department, believing that it was properly due to them. It was not. It was all a big deception. My mother was born in Lancashire in the 1920s. She volunteered for the WAAF in 1939. Having served her country in radar interceptions and barrage balloons, she joined in starting a brave new world in 1946 with her RAF husband and then my brother and me. She raised two children through all the rationing and shortages of post-war Britain. She 'took in' sewing to help make ends meet. She never asked for anything to which she was not entitled. She never expected anything except what she earned, and taught her children to think the same way. She deserves better than this from her government.

If ever you find yourself in a similar position, I recommend that you ask for specific written confirmation that the amount being demanded is a legitimate debt of the estate and not just an overpaid amount arising from the Government's incompetence. They make it sound like the former, when it is in fact the latter. If they cannot establish that the amount is a legal debt then you, or the executors, should not pay it."

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On a happier note, this week marks the 200th appearance of this column. Among the festivities planned to celebrate this auspicious occasion was a visit by her Majesty the Queen. Sadly, she had to cancel. She was a little miffed that someone else got the job she had set her heart on, driving the golf cart at Port Royal. So it goes.

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Football news: Speaking of celebrations, it should be pointed out over and over that Tottenham Hotspur, at this writing, top the English Premiership, which is entirely as it should be. Manchester United are rubbish. Chelsea are worse. Brazil aren't even in the Premiership. Time for all you losers to get on the Spurs bandwagon. Enough said.