End of an Era
What do you do when a loved one dies? Unfortunately, it will happen to many of us, but are we prepared? To be honest, I didn’t know all the steps so I started researching. On top of grieving for that person – there is much to organize and a lot of paperwork to fill out. During this time, I recommend reaching out to a loved one or friend to help. A lawyer or CPA might also be a professional who can advise.
Some of the first items to do are:
- Getting a legal pronouncement of death
- Arranging for the body to be transported
- Make any arrangements for care of dependents or pets
- Contact family, friends, and employer (if applicable) informing them of the passing
These immediate items build on one other. For example – without a declaration of death, you can’t plan a funeral, much less handle the deceased’s legal affairs. When telling friends and family about the passing – perhaps a group text / mass email would be easiest for you. Or reaching out to a few close people and asking them to relay the message to others.
Next Steps
After the above critical items are addressed, the next steps are:
- Make final arrangements (i.e. burial / cremation, service or memorial)
- Get 10-15 copies of the death certificate
- Get letters of administration or representation
- Secure the home if the person lived alone
- Find financial documents (ex. will, record of accounts, debts, all insurance policies, identification documents, marriage and birth certificates, tax returns, credit reports)
For many of the items above – hopefully the person took note of my other posts and are well organized to more easily accomplish the above. Final arrangement should hopefully be finalized (and paid for) ahead of time, and you know about their wishes for a funeral / burial / cremation. Following my earlier posts – all important financial documents should be easily accessible and organized.
Who to Call?
After you’ve done all this – then you must start notifying all public institutions. These tedious tasks must be done – and inevitably will be time consuming. A subset of those to contact:
- Social Security Administration
- Financial Institutions where the individual had accounts
- Insurance companies
- Credit Bureaus
- Credit Card companies
- Creditors
- Utility companies
- Post office
- Department of Motor Vehicles
Resource Tip: Check out the following articles:
The passing of a loved one is never easy, so I hope the above post at least helps to detail the steps to take and organize all the chaos / uncertainty.