My dad passed away a few days ago. I’m sad, especially because I hadn’t seen him since my mom’s memorial service a few years ago, and the kids don’t really remember him that much. We’d recently decided to visit him this spring break, and he was so happy to hear that. =((
Anyway, I’m the executor, but my sister is happy to help with the details. There’s just the two of us, and we both live hundreds of miles away in different directions and both have juniors who have tough classes, ECs, and are looking at colleges. So, not super easy to spend a lot of time at my dad’s place.
I realized that some of you here have been executors before, so I was hoping to get advice. My sister and I have been making phone calls and lists, so I’ll post those here.
Luckily, my dad was pretty organized, so I’m sure all the paperwork can be found in his house. There’s a trust, and I think most things are in it. But he was not at all online or computer-savvy, so some things can’t be done remotely.
– Notified relatives (there aren’t that many).
– Getting the word out to his church. Need to find a phone number for his bridge partner.
– Probably will have a memorial service in late March, since both of our kids’ have the same spring break.
– Obituary, once we have a service scheduled I guess.
– Talked to mortuary and working on filling out info for death certificate and choosing cremation details.
– Once death certificates are ready, I’ll have to go up and present them in person to his local bank (also for my mom, who passed years ago, but is still on the account) along with the trust documents.
– All the trust and financial stuff is in a filing cabinet in his office. So, I’ll need to get that and power of attorney or whatever from the trust before I can deal with liquidating things.
– We were advised to get ~10 copies of both death certificates, because we will need them.
– Cancelled both newspapers
– Forwarded his mail to me
– Working on forwarding his phone to my sister
– There is no email to forward. He didn’t deal well with computers.
– A neighbor will make sure the heat is on ~55. My dad never programmed his thermostat, but he lives in the Sierras where it snows frequently.
– We won’t need to worry about watering outside plants until spring/summer, I think.
– Get the door fixed where the firemen had to break in. He had several friends who were contractors.
– Keep the electricity, water, and propane service on. Turned off cable for TV and Internet, but not phone.
– There are probably some other services, like driveway plowing.
– My sister and I need to meet to spend time splitting up things in the house. My dad was not a pack rat; he’d already disposed of Christmas ornaments etc. So, there’s probably not much, but there are some photos. We can get those duplicated.
– He has an amazing workshop downstairs that he couldn’t get to for a couple years. I’m sure my husband and my brother-in-law would like a lot of those tools. They will need to divide things up and figure out how to ship things (and we’ll need an extra garage here, I think).
– File his 2015 (and later 2016) taxes. He was pretty organized and we found the tax service that did it last year.
– There is probably a safe deposit box.
– Estate sale for furniture and things we don’t want.
– Sell the house. We have at least on Realtor recommendation already.
– Liquidate stocks or bank accounts.
– I doubt there is life insurance, but if there is, there will be papers in the filing cabinet.
– Once I have access to his bank account, I guess I need to contact his pension plan. Not sure how to do that. He was a police officer and never paid into Social Security. My mom may have received a small amount of Social Security, and so he might have gotten some as a surviving spouse. I have no clue about Social Security, but I guess I just call them and ask questions until I find the right person.
– He was a Korean War army vet. Is there anything I’m supposed to do regarding that? He never liked to talk about the war, other than that Korea is very cold in the winter.
Ynotgo, so sorry about the loss of your father. May your memories bring you comfort.
My father was a Korean War Army Vet too.
To this day, when someone complains about being cold, his response is, ‘You don’t know what cold is!’
The comes the story of eating the frozen fruit cocktail in Korea…
Your list looks quite thorough.
My advices is to get to SS and pension notifications quickly so those automatic deposits will stop. You do not want to have to pay them back with interest.
What is his attorney doing? Your father paid for the services.
As for the vet information: your mortuary is supposed to contact the military for burial honors, but you can contact your local VFW chapter and ask them what your next steps would be. Someone at the VFW or VA will help.
Do you have an attorney? I found that having a good attorney and a good accountant in the state of the deceased (my sympathies, by the way) were a godsend. You don’t need power of attorney as that is for living people. You need legal advice first and foremost. You will need to send death certificates (some require originals) to credit card companies, social security, veterans administration, banks and investment people. Funeral homes are very helpful at obtaining these documents and also with writing obituaries. A good funeral director is also a wonderful person to help you. Good luck!
Also, you can’t just start splitting things up until you know where you stand legally. It is easier if you and your sibling can keep working things out; so stay on a friendly basis.
You can get books on being an executor. Did he have a will?
You probably should at least consult with an attorney so you understand what you can and can’t do, and whether you need testamentary letters to carry out activities as executor of the state, etc. Sometimes you need this to deal with places like pension companies and financial services companies. Having a death certificate is not enough, they need some kind of proof that you have authority to act for the estate, especially if you were not on the accounts as joint or a beneficiary.
There is no “POA” from a trust. Depending on his will and how the trust is set up, you may now be the trustee, though.
A short consultation with an attorney would be a great idea. I have been an executor, and estate law is not always obvious.
I’d advise you to just keep the thermostat set near normal living conditions. If you get a very cold snap and you burst a pipe, the cost and nuisance will make your savings from those 12 degrees or so look like a a very bad bargain. There are bunch of people in the northeast right now dealing with that .
The rest of your list seems good and I doubt you’ll have any issues.
My sister thinks that the attorney who set up the trust is retired. Once I see the trust papers, I can try to locate that attorney or that company if it still exists.
I think there is a will along with the trust. Sounds like I need to go up there this weekend to get the paperwork. Darn, I will miss Yo-Yo Ma.
Neighbor or someone should watch the house during the service, since thieves have been known to target the houses of the deceased when everyone is at the announced services.
Temperature should be set to whatever unoccupied ski cabins in the area are set at to avoid pipes freezing.
Usually the funeral director helps you fill out the death certificate and files it and also prepares an obituary that goes online. You can also make a memorial page at www.tributes.com - my sister and I found that to be a much richer and more rewarding experience than the smaller funeral director one.
Depending on the state, death certificates may require a lot more information than you’d expect. I’m in the middle of trying to correct my father’s death certificate because of this.
Also, if everything is going into a trust, there may be no other “estate” and the will may not need to be registered. You sound like you have most things figured out well!
Yes, finding the will and trust paperwork are critical next steps. I would not do anything except critical stuff like the funeral services until then. You might make a misstep at the bank or elsewhere – gotta get that paperwork. If you live far away, you need to consider that you probably need to consult an attorney in his state. The estate (and likely the trust) will be governed by the laws of that state, and there are variances between states – attorneys often do not know the nuances of other state’s laws.
I would contact a lawyer to see what the requirement are for filing probate. It varies by state so you need a local lawyer. It is worth a consult yo do it right,
It can help to go though the checkbook, bank and credit card bills for the past six months. Look for reoccurring bills that have to be paid or cancelled. Look for payments for life insurance and health insurance.
I also suggest taking an inventory of what is in the estate. Depending on the size of the estate, you might need appraisals. If stocks/bonds or a real estate is involved you will need an appraisal al the date of dead and at six months (if I remember right) to determine what is the best date for determining the the cost basis. The estate lawyer can guide on this.
You might also need to get a tax id for the estate. Again the lawyer can guide you.
I don’t think the paperwork is so urgent you have to miss Yo-Yo Ma, this estate stuff can drag on for months, don’t get in the habit of cancelling fun stuff!
Some companies/banks may require additional paperwork though legally it should not be required, but you’ll still find yourself doing it.
@intparent Luckily we are in the same state, but California is large.
@ucbalumnus Pretty sure he didn’t want much more to do with the Army. Also, he thought cemeteries were silly, which surprised me because of his religious beliefs. I thought he’d have a problem with cremation, but didn’t.
We’ll look into a local lawyer. My husband read some on probate, and we may not need that if he was successful in putting everything over $150,000 in the trust. But, we don’t know that yet. I’m sure the house is in the trust, and that is probably most of everything.
@mominva Getting his pension plan stopped was surprisingly easy. I was just calling to find out what kind of ID I would need, and they didn’t need anything. Considering how difficult it was to find the pension plan phone number amongst all the news articles about the financial difficulties of the Oakland, CA pension system, it’s not surprising that they are happy to remove someone from their plan.
I would get 20 copies of the death certificate rather than 10. You will need one for every credit card account that you need to close and for every utility account that you want to close or put in your name.
If the will had to be filed, there may be formal requirements for an inventor. There are rules around the cost basis. Just the stuff that attorney can advise you on.
It can take quite a while to get through all the paperwork at the house… :(. Don’t plan on it being just a day or two.