Man returned from holiday to find he had been declared dead by the government

It's inevitable that you're going to return home after a lengthy holiday to a huge pile of post - wads of bills, bank statements and brochures are often blocking the door when you try and struggle inside with your suitcase.

Although this mound of mail can often be overwhelming to open, it's not a patch on what this fella felt like when he opened a letter from the government explaining that he had been declared dead.

You can imagine poor Nick Fatouros pinching himself to confirm he was in fact alive rather than a ghostly being after catching up on the correspondence he had received from Canada's Ministry of Justice.

The 34-year-old had been blissfully unaware of his supposed mortality status while enjoying an extended holiday in Costa Rica, but he got quite a rude awakening when he returned home to the city of Montreal after nearly two years.

Nick was met by a 14-page letter in the mail which explained that the Quebec government were seeking to collect money from his estate in relation to an unpaid speeding fine dating back to 2022.

Unbeknownst to the officials chasing up the fee, the bloke was still going strong and had simply been topping up his tan for nearly two years and enjoying the sun Central America has to offer, rather than being six-feet under.

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Discussing his shock after receiving the letter, Nick told CTV News: "I was laughing. I said, 'Wow, that's news to me."

He explained that just before jetting off two years ago, he had challenged a speeding ticket that he had received but 'completely forgot about' the fact he had appealed the fine while he was away.

Nick said he was only glad that his mother hadn't opened his post and read the alarming letter, adding: "If she would open this and I was off on my travels, God forbid, you know, she would say, what's going on?"

It seems that the Canadian had bizarrely been declared dead during his absence, which he suspects may have been the result of a 'mistake' or a 'typo'.

But apparently, trying to kickstart the process to prove that he is actually alive isn't as simple as you may think.

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Nick claims he has struggled to get hold of a government official to inform them that he is still breathing, as it's 'very hard to get through' - I mean, how many people are ringing up the 'wrongly declared dead hotline' at once?

And according to lawyer William Korbatly, time is of the essence for the traveller in terms of declaring that he is alive.

He said: "Sometimes, it happens to have some mistakes like this, but it's really, really rare.

"It won't only affect this traffic ticket, it would affect all of his, you know, succession and everything."

A spokesperson for the Ministry of Justice said that the mix-up was down to 'human error'.

"The Collector of Fines mistakenly used a letter template used to correspond with an estate rather than the one normally used to communicate with a defendant. We apologize for the situation," an email stated.

"An appropriate follow-up will be made with the citizen."