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Dennis Peacock
09-21-2011, 9:43 AM
Below is a list that I made up from all the stuff I’ve been going through in the past 10 days. This list is not a rule set, but something to be aware of.

1. Put ALL your life, burial, and vault insurance policies in a single folder. Just because you can find it, doesn’t always mean someone else can.
2. Make sure you have a living will and keep it in the same folder as your life insurance policy.
3. Make sure your will is kept current.
4. Keep your beneficiaries up to date on every insurance policy.
5. Make sure someone else you trust is on your bank account with you and can legally sign checks and take care of the account for you.
6. Make a list of every computer account you have and keep it in a clearly marked folder.
7. Make a list of every automatic draft account you have setup for bill pay.
8. Make sure you have at least $10,000 for burial expenses.
9. Make sure you have money set aside for a family spray of flowers for the casket.
10. Create a list of online accounts that you have created, including passwords so that someone else can update and close your online account as necessary. A small password keeping program like “KeePass” is a great computer tool to keep your user account name, password, and the link to that site for that specific user name and password.
11. Make sure you have at least 12 copies of the death certificate. Many places want a copy for their records as you go about the financial business of the survivor (if there is one).
12. Leave instructions about probating your will.
13. Deed to your property, make sure it can be found easily by your family.
14. Vehicle titles, leave instructions on how to get the titles changed over to another name. In the case of a spouse survivor, have all your vehicle titles changed to include your spouse on the titles to save that time and hassle.
15. Contact Social Security about the passing of your loved one. SSA will require a copy of the death certificate if the funeral home has not notified them already.
16. The survivor will need to have the will “probated”. This will require a lawyer and he will work with the family and primarily the Executor of the estate.
17. The lawyer will run a required death announcement in the local paper for a total of 3 consecutive Fridays. This is in case someone is owed money from the deceased or deceased family. Check your local legal requirements on this line item.
18. Contact every business that the deceased does business with on a regular basis and work with them to get the account name changed to the survivor or work with them to close the account if it’s no longer needed. Local Utilities, telephone, cell phone, pest control, car insurance, home owners insurance, and the list goes on from here.
19. Don’t rush everything. In order to get everything worked out properly will take time, effort, money, patience, understanding, and digging through papers in places you never dreamed of.
20. Document everything you need to do and then continue to document all that you do for each item on your list. Includes dates, times, and what was done and by whom.
21. Practice patience and understanding while working and visiting with a survivor. Grieving comes in many forms and many things can trigger an outburst of grief. Extend yourself for that added bit of compassion and understanding for the survivor and their family.
22. Be ready in case the financial institution closes the current account upon you presenting them with the death certificate. If you aren’t ready for this? It can cause you all kinds of stress, problems, and heated discussions. It’s best to move some money into a new bank account but leave most of it in the existing account to cover outstanding checks, credit card transactions, debit card transactions, and any specific IRA account under that same account.
23. Be ready to work with the funeral home to work out details for payment of the funeral expenses.
24. Don’t forget the headstone for the grace site. This is an additional expense to the family.
25. Be ready to spend some time at your local county health department to get copies of death certificates of loved ones gone on before. This is to deal with insurance policies you find where those were the named beneficiaries but they are no longer living.

This list could go on and on….and each family will have to deal with specifics to just their family and only some items in general. Be prepared for this process to take about 2 weeks in general to get the most things done while others will take weeks to get done due to paperwork and mailing.

Feel free to add to this as I felt that someone could benefit from the things I've learned in the last 10 days on the death of my dad.

Al Wasser
09-21-2011, 10:24 AM
I went thru the same thing a year ago. My brother is a lawyer and he was very helpful. The punch list is helpful and and will vary depending on the state of residence and complexity of your estate. One of the hard things for me was finding things in the home, ie, where did she put such and such.

Bonnie Campbell
09-21-2011, 10:45 AM
If you are the surviving widow, be prepared for companies treating you as a total idiot. Also be prepared for utility companies that won't change an account into YOUR name, without a hefty charge.

A BIG point to watch, and this is for ANY survivor handling paper work. Do NOT automatically pay medical bills as they pop up afterward. I received the hospital bill before my husband was gone a month. Good thing I knew his insurance coverage well. I knew it was ALL covered and paid. "Oh, we made a mistake." Yeah right. And the $6,000 you billed me for most likely never would have been returned if I had paid. Another doctors office started sending bills a year after he'd passed away. You'd think that his primary doctors office would know he'd passed away? Probably did, but befuddled widows/ers often pay bills when getting dunned.

I was told I didn't need to file probate, but it's a good 'insurance' policy. Nobody can come after it's final and tell you the deceased owes them money. It is well worth the investment for peace of mind later.

Sorry about the rant.

Michael Weber
09-21-2011, 11:18 AM
To all the above, I might add to look into a Revocable Living Trust. More expensive than a will but no attorney probate fees later so probably less expensive in the long run. Your assets pass automatically to those named in the trust so no probate necessary and increased privacy in that your name need not be published. It can be drawn up by an attorney and your house and other assets will be placed in the name of the trust. Check with a local attorney.

David Weaver
09-21-2011, 12:24 PM
Sorry to hear about your dad's passing, Dennis.

If even one person follows your advice, you will have helped someone more than they will probably be able to appreciate having not had to do all of those things the hard way.

Dennis Peacock
09-21-2011, 12:59 PM
David Weaver,

I've had to come into this "cold". I had no clue as to what needed to be done and no money to hire an attorney to help me figure it all out. I've spent every spare dollar on travel to help my parents and expenses for my parents during the April 2011 tornado out-break while I was here that week. This has been all too painful for me and my mom as well as extremely frustrating because things weren't where dad told mom they were. It's only been this week did she finally admit and realize just how bad off my dad really was mentally over the last 12 months.

So far, I have been off work for 12 days, driven across 3 states, drove over 1,000 miles tracking down various documents, certificates, funeral arrangements, banks, businesses, State DMV offices, and the list grows from there. I get to be in my own home come next week.

I WANTED to be here for my dad and my mom. I chose to be here, stay here, and love them through all this pain. I chose to be here to love my mom, comfort her, listen to her, cry with her, help her figure all this legal stuff out, take the hollering from her because she was so frustrated and hurt over all this. I wouldn't trade this for all of life.

When my life is over.....I want people to clearly recognize my legacy....integrity, honesty, loving, caring, compassionate, helpful, and giving.

I wanted my parents to be proud of me and I wanted to love them well...just when love came so difficult during the hard times of life. I wanted to be here for them....even when I just couldn't bare to see my mom and dad like they were. So full of fear, pain, and helpless. I hurt and I hurt deeply.

I wanted something good to come out of all this and ....maybe, just maybe, this is the start of it for me.

Thanks for listening to a hurting heart.

Don Alexander
09-22-2011, 11:08 PM
Dennis;
having been through pretty much exactly what you are describing i know how you feel. You will never regret the effort you have put into taking care of your mom and dad to the best of your ability; its a tribute to them that cannot be topped.
Wish i could tell you when the hurt begins to lessen, but i can't.......... i just know that your parents have a great son who loves them.

Mike Henderson
09-22-2011, 11:36 PM
I'm very sorry of your loss, Dennis. I went through a similar thing about two years ago when I lost my wife, although by the time she died I had taken over all the financial matters and had a pretty good handle on things. The funeral home was very helpful, also, giving me advice on certain things. It takes a long time to settle everything.

Mike

Rick Potter
09-23-2011, 2:49 AM
Hang in there Dennis,

I was there recently myself. My mom had Alzheimers, and died a few years ago, followed by my dad a year later. I had to handle it all, and we still have a bank account with dads name on it for a few things. Doing all that you are, seems like a never ending job, and knowing that you did all you could for them will help ease the pain as time goes on.

One big item really helped our family. Early on, by brother and I, who have never been close, decided that we would not argue over anything having to do with the estate, and we both stuck to it. Even though I had to handle it all, he caused absolutely no problems for me, nor me for him. Fortunately for me, I had just retired when they started to really go downhill. I worked on their rental properties 10 to 12 hours a day for 2 1/2 years. They had been badly neglected, and needed a lot of work. Every dime from those properties went into paying their rest home and medical bills. Now, I look back on that time, and find comfort in knowing that I, like you, did all I could to help.

I share this to assure you that you are doing the right thing, and when it is finished you will know in your heart that you did what you could, and find comfort in knowing.

Rick Potter

PS: I, too, would add a living trust to the list. Theirs really helped me, and I got one of my own because of it.

Mike Wilkins
09-23-2011, 9:50 AM
Truly sorry to hear of your loss Dennis. Lost my dad almost a year ago. Your nuggets of advice are spot-on and should be passed on to as many folks as possible.

Jim Becker
09-25-2011, 5:59 PM
There are so many things that so many of us take for granted. Thanks for the gentle reminder, Dennis...

Rob Damon
09-25-2011, 7:09 PM
Also, be prepared for the long haul. It took nearly a year before everything was finalized and accepted for my father's estate and I was the only beneficiary (as well as the executor.) I did not need/use a lawyer and I gained great education and a great appreciation for what is involved in managing an estate from start to finish. It can be time consuming.

Another thing to watch for: I contacted all of his credit card companies the day after he passed and cancelled them and asked if there was a balance and was told "No, all paid off".

Come to find out, my father had charged a few items on one of his credit cards at the local military base PX a week before going into the hospital and passing away. It did not post to the account until over a month and a half later. Because my father had the monthly statements/payments sent via online, he never recieved hard copies in the mail for us to find and pay.

So when we closed his online access account a month later, we never recieved the "notices of late payment due now" statements via email.

Eight months later, I get a phone call from a lawyer (collection agency) representing the credit card company saying he had a balance due plus interest. Once I determined it was legit, it was paid off.

Also, get up to speed on the tax issues ASAP, if the estate has any value. You need to determine who will pay taxes on what for some items and how on some items that are properly handled can avoid taxes for several years (i.e. savings bonds, FBO IRA's,etc.)

If your parent had an IRA that they had start taking distributions from and you take it over as an FBO IRA, you will need to continuing taking distributions (RMD).

If you can't distribute the estate assests before it has earnings and those earnings exceed $600, then the "estate" will need to file FED/STATE income taxes and you will need to keep good monthly accounting. Luckily for me, I was able to distribute the estate assets before this threshold was reached. For example if your father's moneymarket fund goes into the estate, the money it earns from the date of his death to the date the it is distrubuted is taxable to the estate.

If you are named the executor, you need to get the paperwork ASAP so you will be legally reconized by the courts (and everyone else) as being the person that can talk about that person's estate and assets. Without it you can do very little and can get no medical or finincial information about that person's estate and assets.

Also, "Power of Attorney" is only valid up to the point the individual can make mental decisions, "Durable Power of Attorney" is only valid up to the point death. Upon death neither are valid and at that point everything (that are not a direct to beneficiary type of assets) becomes a part of the estate that is controlled by the executor.



Rob

Chris Kennedy
09-25-2011, 8:04 PM
My family was "lucky" in the sense that when my mother got sick, we had some warning. Things are very complicated with my family because my parents are not citizens and the tax issues are insane. We used a revocable trust to shelter some of the tax issues. Also, the funeral home will help you with the death certificates and the like, and get multiple certificates. Every financial institution will want an official copy. When my mother died, we got twenty copies. We used most of them. You can always get more, but is more convenient if you have them on hand.

One thing my dad put into his will is the stipulation that a lawyer will be hired and the expenses deducted from the estate. As the executor, I am happy about that on some level.

Cheers,

Chris

David Larsen
09-25-2011, 8:53 PM
One correction I would like to add. Keep the living will information readily available rather than in a file.

If you get a living will and want a "do not resuscitate" order (no CPR or life saving measures), you should always have a copy of this order within arms reach. Should the person named in the order pass away, if this order isn't available and emergency services are called they would be obligated to start life saving measures unless they physically see a copy of the order. People are told to keep a copy with them if they travel and keep a copy on the refrigerator.

Richard Wolf
09-26-2011, 7:57 AM
Godspeed Dennis.

Dennis Peacock
09-26-2011, 8:01 AM
Thanks for the good info and tips. Greatly appreciated.