9 Urgent Tasks - Things To Do Immediately When You’ve Lost Someone
First off, we are so sorry you’ve lost someone important to you. This situation is impossibly difficult, and you have the our deepest condolences.
We have built a series of blogs that aim to help families to understand the steps that need to be taken when a loved one passes. We want you to understand what steps need to be completed in what order (and what’s urgent vs what isn’t).
There are a handful of things that need to be done right away. You’ve likely already gotten started working on them. The first few days after you've lost a loved one are a difficult whirlwind, but having a checklist makes the process a little less scary. Here's where you need to begin.
Alert Responsible Parties
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When your loved one passes away, someone will need to call the police department. The police department will arrive with the local coroner. The coroner will take your loved one to a place where they will be held until you have chosen a funeral home. This temporary holding place is called a mortuary. The coroner will start some of the legal paperwork for you. Learn more about coroner’s job duties here.
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You will need to alert the staff of your loved one’s passing right away, so a physician can announce their time of death. You will not be asked to leave the room right away. In fact, the physician will often offer to leave the room to give loved ones a few minutes to say goodbye privately. After goodbyes have been said, the physician will ask loved ones to leave the room, so they can prepare the body for transport without an audience. They will put a sheet over your loved one and use a gurney to take them to an ambulance standing by. The ambulance will take your loved one to a funeral home of your choosing (or a mortuary if you need more time to make a decision).
*In either case, the coroner may ask you if you want to do an autopsy. We did not choose to do that, because it can be invasive, and in our case the cause of death was clear.
2. Alert close friends and family of your loved one’s passing
This part is hard. Immediate family needs to know right away. We called other important people the next day.
Before you start your phone calls, have an exit strategy. Otherwise, you’ll find yourself on VERY long phone calls when you (and probably the person on the other line) don’t have the bandwidth to do so. You don’t need to be anyone’s support system right now while you are grieving. Make it short and sweet. Tell them what happened. Tell them that they were an important person in your loved one’s life, so they’re getting the call first. Tell them you have other people to call, so you have to go.
After you've alerted everyone who will need to hear the news from you, post an announcement online on your social media (and theres if you have access), so everyone else will hear the news. Tag your loved one, so their friends will see it. Mention that they should stay tuned for funeral/wake arrangements.
3. Choose a funeral home
You need to choose a funeral home and call them. If your loved one passed away over the weekend, you may not hear back from them until Monday. Don't be alarmed if the meeting is scheduled a few days out. This is very normal. The funeral home will probably ask you what county your loved one lived in. They will use this information to arrange for your loved one’s body to be transferred from the mortuary to the funeral home. The funeral home will set up an appointment with you where your family will sit down with a representative who will talk you through next steps. We will come back to this in our next blog: Semi-Urgent Tasks.
Learn more about how to choose a Funeral Home here.
We used Horan & McConaty Funeral Service, and we would highly recommend working with them if you live in Colorado. We worked with their Lakewood branch.
4. Locate your loved ones important items
Go to your loved one’s home. Look for the following items and take them home with you. Do this as soon as you are able, especially if you have any concerns over important items going missing.
Last Will & Testament
Ideally, you need to find the original, notarized will. It is possible to close an estate without a will, but it can be difficult, lengthy, and expensive. If you can’t find the will, and you know what lawyer they worked with to create it, call that office. They may have the original copy.
Important Documents (paperwork designating an Executor/Personal Representative, Birth Certificate, Social Security Card, Tax Paperwork, Power of Attorney, etc.)
An Executor is the person your loved one appointed to handle estate related tasks and make decisions. If you can’t find this paperwork, next of kin is usually in charge. Learn more about what an executor is here.
Wallet with IDs and Credit Cards
You do not want these getting into the wrong hands. The coroner may ask for your loved one's ID.
Personal cell phone
You’ll need this to reset passwords with 2 factor authorization. Use the “forgot my password” option for accounts you’re having a hard time accessing. You’ll also need the phone to get contact information for your loved one’s friends and family.
Personal Computer and/or iPad
These devices often are already logged into all their important accounts and email, so you do not want these falling into the wrong hands. You can often use these to reset any logins you need access to. They are also extremely helpful for cataloging where all their important accounts, home utilities, and more are.
House keys
Find the keys and the spares to the house, close the blinds or drapes before leaving if there are any, and consider leaving a light on so the house looks occupied. This will make the house less susceptible to burglaries.
Car Keys
Don’t drive their car around unless absolutely necessary, and do not let anyone who is not the Executer drive the car. When a person passes away, their insurance enters a gray zone and no one is insured to drive their vehicle. Learn more about dealing with cars here. While you’re at the house, make sure the car is somewhere safe where it can stay for a while.
Car Title, Titles for Boats, ATV’s, RVs, etc.
Titles are an important part of cataloging the estate and making sure all assets are accounted for. For towable vehicles like boats, sometimes the titles are assigned to the trailer instead of the vehicle.
Password Documents
If you're lucky, your loved one saved their passwords in a secure vault and left a document about how to access that. These vaults are incredibly helpful because not only do they allow you to access accounts, they provide a master list of all the sites your loved one typically accessed like utilities, bills, and other liabilities you’ll need to keep track of.
Animals or plants in the house you need to take responsibility for
5. While you’re at the house, throw away anything in the fridge/freezer that will spoil.
6. Choose clothes for your loved one to be buried or cremated in.
You don’t have to pick a suit - we picked comfy pants and a fish shirt our dad liked to wear. Don’t forget to bring underwear and socks for them. Shoes are not necessary, but you can include them if you want.
If you choose to cremate your loved one, you are allowed to include small personal items to be cremated with them. We included our dad's karate belts, for example. You also have the option to write them a letter to have cremated with them.
7. Prepare for your meeting at the funeral home
When you attend your meeting with the funeral home. You will discuss the following talking points:
Start thinking about whether you’d like your loved one to be buried or cremated. Depending on what you choose, the funeral home will walk you through a series of decisions. Click here to read about cremation decisions. Click here to read about burial decisions.
Also consider whether or not you’d like the funeral home to arrange a “viewing.”
A viewing takes place in a nice room inside of the funeral home. Before the viewing, someone at the funeral home will give your loved one a bath, wash their hair, etc, so they look as close to the person you remember as possible. The funeral home will dress them in the clothes you’ve chosen. They may ask for a picture of your loved one. The purpose of a viewing is to be able to see your loved one one last time before cremation or funeral proceedings. Attending is absolutely optional. We did not attend, but a few family members did. It’s helpful for closure for some people.
Think about whether you’d like to have a traditional funeral (with an open casket). If you choose this option, the funeral needs to be planned quickly, and the funeral home can help you plan it. Get started here. Traditionally this type of event includes a private viewing, a public viewing, a funeral procession, a church service, a burial, and a reception. This is common for Catholic families.
If you choose to cremate your loved one, you can wait as long as you want to organize something. We waited about two months. Because our dad was cremated, we didn’t have to stick to any particular time frame for this part. If you want to plan a less traditional service read about alternative options here.
The funeral home will ask you a few questions to fill in the details for the death certificate. Some of the questions required a little bit of research, so it’s good to find those answers early if you can. They will need to know your loved one’s:
Social Security Number
Their middle name
Their parent’s names
The address where they lived
They will need to know if the place they lived was in an area that is incorporated or unincorporated. A realtor can tell you this if you don’t know.
The address where your loved one passed away
The city where your loved one was born
*It’s important to get this right, because it takes a bit of time to order the death certificates (which are going to be extremely important), and it’s a nightmare of a process to revise them if something is incorrect.
8. Hire an estate lawyer.
Most of these estate tasks can be handled by the Executor without the assistance of a lawyer, but there are 3 pieces of paper a lawyer needs to file for. Click here to learn more about choosing a lawyer.
You need a lawyer to apply for an “Order of Informal Probate of Will and Informal Appointment of Personal Representative.” This paperwork will make you an official Executor (also known as a Personal Representative). If no one was designated as an Executor, this person is usually next of kin or a person who volunteers to fill the role. This paperwork is submitted to the county where your loved one lived, and it’ll take at least a few days for them to send back “Personal Representative Paperwork.” This paperwork is the Executor’s golden ticket to take care of whatever needs to be taken care of. It’s pretty hard to do anything without it.
The lawyer will also request a “Tax Payer ID Number,” so you can do your loved one's last round of taxes at a later date.
The lawyer will put a creditor summons in the local newspaper. If someone contacts you saying your loved one owes them money, you have to negotiate payment. This payment doesn’t come from you - it comes from your loved one’s estate account. If they don’t have the money, and there’s no way to recoup the money from your loved one’s personal assets, you don’t have to pay. If no one comes forward after a certain amount of time claiming your loved one owes them money (which is usually the case), you’re off the hook.
Your lawyer will also open probate if necessary (this will depend on your loved one’s assets). If probate is opened your lawyer will ask you to start making an inventory of your loved one’s assets (personal property, bank accounts, car, brokerage accounts, furniture, jewelry, etc.) and they will ask you to keep track of any estate related expenses you incur. Learn more about probate here.
We hired Leia Ursery at GoodSpeed Merril: 720.473.7644. She will do a free consultation with you if you want to interview her. Give your lawyer your loved one’s will and associated paperwork.
9. Change passwords
Change passwords on your loved one's important accounts (banks, investments, credit cards, Venmo, Paypal, email, social media, airline logins, etc.). If someone spends money/takes money out of your loved one’s bank account, there isn’t a way to get it back without pressing charges against them and instigating a lengthy, expensive lawsuit.
There are scammers who watch for people who have passed away and specifically try to get access to their social security number, accounts, and other items to use before they are closed down.