Generally, debts of the person who has died are the responsibility of the estate of that person. Assets of the estate such as real estate, property, securities, valuables, and so on will be ordered by the probate court to be sold to pay debts before anything in the estate would go to heirs. If the assets of the estate are not sufficient to pay those debts, the estate is declared to be insolvent (bankrupt), and the creditors will normally write these debts off. If there were any heirs in the picture, some creditors might exert pressure on the heirs to pay, but there is no legal requirement for the heirs to do so, and so when they refuse, the debts will be written off by the companies.
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