Does The Estate Have To Pay Off A Debt After Probate Is Closed?

Location: Illinois My relative passed in January of 2025. My sibling and I were the only family left to inherit. I was the executor of the estate. My relative was the cosigner of an auto loan for a female friend. But car was registered and in the ownership of the female friend. When I got the executor paper work, the first thing I did was go down to the bank to discuss the loan for this vehicle. I was told by the teller, who was in correspondence with someone in a higher position than they were, that the woman would either have to return the vehicle, or refinance into her name to get it out of my relative's name. The bank said the estate wasn't responsible for the loan. So I told my lawyers and left it at that. Probate ended in I believe October. We closed everything, paid the lawyers, and split the rest between my sibling and I. Just today I got a letter from the bank that the woman returned the vehicle, and they sold it at auction. And now the estate owes the remaining $9k. They also said in the letter that they sent a piece of mail in July, notifying me that they were going to sell the vehicle at auction. Which seems untrue, because I forwarded my relatives mail to my home address, and never received any piece of mail from this bank until today. The home sold in June, so if it happened to get sent there I wouldn't have received it. But it seemed most mail got sent to the forwarding address. I reached out this morning to my lawyer to see what they think of this, but haven't received a response yet. So I just wanted to see if anyone has had any experience in this. I paid all of my relative's debts before we ended probate. I didn't settle anything. I paid what people told me to pay. If I had a realistic expectation that this car loan was a debt of the estate, I would have paid it.