The first fortnight after a death, in order
What actually has to be done in the two weeks after somebody dies, and, more usefully, what does not have to be done at all yet.
This is the guide we hope you never open. If you are reading it now, the most useful thing we can tell you is that very little is urgent, and almost everything that feels urgent can wait a week.
What follows is the order things actually need doing, written for somebody who is not going to remember any of it tomorrow.
The first few days
A medical professional certifies the death, and a funeral director will usually handle registration with you. Ask for ten certified copies of the death certificate. Ten sounds absurd and is roughly right: every institution wants an original, and getting more later is slower than getting them now.
Find the will. Look in the vault, the filing cabinet, the safe deposit box, or ask the attorney who drafted it. If the plan was made on this platform, the executor gets access to what was shared with them.
What can wait, and should
Closing accounts. Selling anything. Distributing possessions. Cancelling most subscriptions. Answering anybody who is pressing you about money in the first fortnight.
Nothing good is achieved by moving quickly here, and several things can be made worse. An estate that has been half distributed before anybody has established what it owes is a real problem, and it is the most common early mistake.
Tell the people who have to be told
Employer, bank, mortgage lender, insurers, pension administrators, and government benefit agencies. Most large institutions now have a bereavement team, which is faster than the ordinary customer line and staffed by people who do this all day.
Keep a list of who you have told, when, and what they asked for. In three weeks you will not remember, and you will be asked.
Secure things rather than settling them
Lock the house, make sure the insurer knows if a property is going to be unoccupied, redirect the post, and keep paying any premiums that are still due. An unoccupied home is a common way an estate loses money in the first month.
Take photographs of anything valuable, and do not let items leave the house yet, however well meant the offer.
Then the administration starts
The executor named in the will applies for the authority to act. Where there is a funded trust, the successor trustee already has authority over what it holds and can act sooner.
From here it is an accounting exercise: what was owned, what was owed, what is due, and then distribution. It is normally months rather than weeks, and it is entirely normal for it to feel slow.
If you are reading this in advance
Then the kindest thing you can do for whoever ends up in the first paragraph is to make the first fortnight boring. A signed will they can find. An executor who knows they were named. A list of accounts and policies. Copies with the people who will need them.
That is most of what a plan is for. Not the document, the fortnight.
Legacy Buddy provides document creation tools, not legal advice. Where an estate is contested or complex, speak to an attorney early.
What to take from this
- Order ten certified copies of the death certificate
- Almost nothing is urgent in the first fortnight
- Secure property and keep insurance current before anything else
- Do not distribute anything until debts are known
- Keep a written log of every institution you notify
Knowing what to do is the hard part. This is the easy part.
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