The general rule of thumb is that if your loved one has a lot of debt, and there’s plenty of money to pay it off, the debt will be paid off, according to Tim Gagnon, a professor of accounting at the D’Amore-McKim School of Business at Northeastern University in Boston.

“If a person dies with massive debt but sufficient assets to cover the debt, then the personal representative must liquidate assets to pay the debts before anyone inherits any assets,” Gagnon says.

 

Yahoo! Finance