Death admin

I did the admin for both my parents although my Dad was easier as I already had power of attorney and had already dealt with most things as he was in care with advanced dementia - little and often I found best and keeping a log of tasks done, in progress and yet to start. It's amazing what does get forgotten - I had to sell my Dad's house before he passed to pay care home fees - 5 years later the lady who bought it tracked me down to say my Dad was receiving letters from NS&I - it transpired he had several small premium bond wins which were passed to me. I never found any NS&I certificates so had no idea he had them. I did find all the people I had to speak to to explain about my parents passing were very kind, helpful and friendly - it's a horrible job to do but it does in my experience bring out the best in people on the other end of a phone.

Condolences for your loss.

Get at least 4 copies of the certificate.

The registry office should have told you about "Tell me once" that allows you to notify a lot of the public sector organisations just the once without certificate.

Your bank will have a bereavement section who will also help. Ask them to find accounts - if you shared accounts, they will automatically be yours in total. They will be able, if there are funds, to release money for funeral expenses - just send them the bills.

If your deceased still has a mortgage, then tell them and let them deal with it, because they will have been life insured.

Pia56 Spreadsheets or at least meticulous notes with times and dates and who you spoke to and what was the outcome

Cabbie 21. you have a very street wise grandson!

I dealt with Probate first, as I do not live in the UK and here it is a legal requirement to get in touch with Probate whilst makingI the funeral arrangements - actually the undertaker took care of that notification for me.

Then I concentrated on notifying my sisters-in-law and close friends of my husband's death and after the funeral, which took place five days after his death, I notified his bank, the penson's office, had insurance policies in his name alter to my name, for the house etc. cancelled his accident policy, magazine subscribtions etc. (unfortunately there will be bound to be something on the list that you have totally forgotten about.

No-one will bite your head off because you have forgotten to cancel a subscription, so deal with that list as and when you feel you can. Legal business such as notifying the bank etc. need sto be done first.

Take time to grieve, feel tired, overwhelmed or whatever else you are feeling right now. I am very sorry for your loss, and hope all the good advice given on the thread helps.

I recently had to do the administration after losing my DH 10 weeks ago. Straightforward will, but complicated a little because he did not die in the UK, although this is our home. Probate was required for his private pension and some investments. The probate office, after I had done everything online still asked lots of questions about residency, said I had to fill in different forms. After sending them a very detailed e mail they finally got the message and the first application was accepted.
I found like others that making a list then allocating a notebook page to each organisation I managed to keep it organised. Only attempted a couple of tasks each morning, as I found i had a clearer head then. I think I treated it like being back at work (previously Secretary and then Project Manager) each morning and somehow it seemed not quite so personal and I didn't get too emotional (saved that for later if you see what i mean
Its all done now and thats a great relief. I found the banks and pension bereavement services very kind and helpful.
Unfortunately now that's all done I do have more time when I simply don't know what to do with myself, even though I know that keeping myself busy eases things a little. I miss him so much

Sorry for your loss. I’ve had to deal with my dad’s stuff when he died in 2014 and my mother’s in 2023. I had to sort out her house and contents which I sold at auction. Lots of paperwork and both their wills. As others have said, make a list and do one thing at a time, otherwise it will become overwhelming. Take a deep breath and keep as calm as you can.

My husband died recently and I had to deal with Probate. I did the Tell Us Once forms and got enough death certificates and gathered all the information in a file but I found it very difficult even though it was a simple will. I am used to laws and dealing with admin but it seems that every time I filled in one form it seems to produce another 2 forms to fill in, often with contradictory advice. With the grief and having to cope with all the paperwork and care for an elderly aunt I eventually gave in and handed it over to my solicitor. It is costly but I thought my mental health was more important. I cared for my dear husband with dementia for 5 yrs without help and was exhausted. I’m sure I would have made a mistake.

I sorted all my parents affairs when they died. I was advised by a friend who had fallen foul of it to keep the executors bank account open long past when I thought everything was sorted.
It was good advice, I kept finding additional things that had to go in for a long time after. She had received a cheque in her deceased relatives name long after she had closed the account and had nowhere to deposit it.
One insurance company I rang assured me there was no policy outstanding but as the property took so long to sort during Covid I received paperwork, in the post to the property, 6 months later that referred to an outstanding policy !!

All our sincere condolences and we are very sorry for your loss.

I had our bilingual Spanish and English speaking lawyer assist us and he connected us to a colleague who was French Speaking and English Speaking.

Luckily the paperwork was all orderly and the will as well.

When I was bereaved last year I was advised only to get one death certificate as everything is online now and paper copies are not needed.It sounds as if some people here are finding that not to be correct for everything.

In this area the Citizens Advice is very limited and does not help with anything like this. The Social Prescriber, attached to the GP Practice can be helpful.

My big issue was not knowing passwords, as everything is online now. I could not get into his phone or any of his accounts. I recommend telling someone your passwords.

When my DH died years ago, the biggest problem was the mortgage lender and employer being difficult and it took months of argument for them to pay out what they should.

So sorry for your loss.
My friend is having a dreadful time trying to sort out her husbands estate. He was a dreadful hoarder and kept every financial dealing he had a secret. She even found 6 jars of predecimal coins. Sadly he had a terminal illness and refused to sort things before he died, even his computer password. His answer every time she asked was "you can sort it when I die." Such a dreadful mess for her to untangle.

Tell me Once notified Mr i’s pension provider, despite which they paid his pension. It took four months for them to sort it out. During that time I had aggressive demands to repay that month and absolute refusal to give me any indication of my income from that pension. They demanded my marriage certificate, stressing a copy wouldn’t be accepted. It was as I refused to send the original

Sadmin is what my friend calls it as well FGT

Just an aside but I recently had to telephone a couple of financial institutions re account queries. When the inevitable press 1 for etc came on, I noticed the first one mentioned was for bereavement matters . That is really thoughtful I felt so the bereaved person didn’t have to listen though a long list of options. When I did my husbands probate etc I found huge variations in how institutions and organisations responded.

It took me 3 months, start to finish. I aimed for one task a day at the start. Every time I accomplished something made me feel in control and knowledgeable which gave me confidence.

I found Tell Us Once fantastic. It informs all government departments directly - passport office, state pension, DVLA etc. 19 in all. It is not available in Scotland. How do you cope up there without it? 🤷‍♀️

Two weeks ago there were payments into what is now ‘my bank’ (no longer joint) from Himself’s private pension providers. With payment arrears backdated to his death in February. Himself said I’d get 50% of his work pensions, however the Trustees of the American company he worked for decided to be more generous which was an unexpected surprise.

Anyway I’m all done now.

Our eldest daughter called it ‘sadmin’ which I felt described the whole process very well.

We used to have a joint account. I never fussed looking at it. I used to joke “You do the bills and I’ll do the roast potatoes”. As a team we worked well. It’s been a steep learning curve for me. I now know the amounts going out by direct debit for utilities, Councillor Tax etc. something I never involved myself in before. Hey ho.

Stating the obvious but do it in small bursts. Dont expect to get through it all quickly, or you will suffer health wise probably. Expect it also to be emotionally draining and filter in time to switch off. This isn’t something to do in one big swoop just as grief isn’t.

The Registrar was very helpful when my husband died. She went through Tell Us Once with me, worked out how many copies of the death certificate I would need, and cancelled his passport and blue badge. Most of what we had was in both our names so it was just a matter of removing his name and carrying on as usual.

That’s not cheating, Batty. Using a lawyer is a service people choose to pay for, if they wish. I could do it that way but the charges here are v high, plus I want to do as much as possible myself, for various reasons.

I’ll use a solicitor if I get ‘stuck’ and I’m definitely going to continue to use dh’s accountant, who are very helpful and not expensive.

Batty24

I guess I ‘cheated’. When DH died I literally picked up every scrap of paper we had and shoved them in a bag and went to the solicitor. He kindly sat and sorted it into three piles. One for him to deal with, one for an IFA to deal with and one I could opt to deal with if I wanted - such as gas and electric, or the solicitor would do it for me.
I went with one pile for each of us.

It’s not cheating . It was your way of dealing with it. Whatever works in your own set of circumstances.

I guess I ‘cheated’. When DH died I literally picked up every scrap of paper we had and shoved them in a bag and went to the solicitor. He kindly sat and sorted it into three piles. One for him to deal with, one for an IFA to deal with and one I could opt to deal with if I wanted - such as gas and electric, or the solicitor would do it for me.
I went with one pile for each of us.

Probably a llot depends on how complicated the estate is, whether or not the person left a Will. I dealt with DH estate, did all the work for confirmation of estate for Court. The worst and most frustrating part was trying to Amazon from DHs name into mine. Even though I had access whilst he was alive I could not have a/c transferred. If closed I'd lose access to photos. Decided to just change communication into my email and it works fine.
Do keep a diary to help with dates you did what, spoke with whoever as matters can get confusing if not complicated.

Cabbie21

It is hard work.
As well as the usual stuff, my DH had all sorts of subscriptions, some not easy to trace as all records were online. A couple which I only discovered after a few months were paid for via PayPal but I had already closed that account. It took a huge number of messages and calls to sort it all out. I kept his phone and email accounts open for several months to make sure nothing was missed.

On a lighter note, when the time came to sell his two ipads and two mobiles which were still fairly new, my grandson, then 18, came with me to the shop, Cex, which buys and sells such things. He said, “ We’ll go together, Granny. If you go on your own, they might try and rip you off. If I go alone, they’ll think I stole them.”

Ahh how thoughtful of him 😊

Pia56. I am currently dealing with my dh’s estate. His will is straightforward but still challenging to do. The forms and notes I printed out came to 36 pages! It has to be done on paper because in Scotland, if you do it online you have to complete it in one session, you can’t save it and return to it later. There’s an enormous amount of information to input and I know I won’t be able to do it on one day.

I didn’t find Tell Us Once all that good, they were quick to stop payments but slow to respond otherwise. Also, they don’t inform DVLA, I had to do that myself. Also they took eight weeks to transfer ownership.

My priority was making sure I had enough money to live on before moving on to other things. Even yesterday, after ten weeks, I had five items in the post with admin to do, it’s endless. I tell myself that even one task a day is whittling away at the pile.

I hope you manage to get through it all as easily as possible.

You might find a book, just published, of use. It is called Get Ahead of Being Dead, written by Evie King. I think it is actually intended to be used before we die ourselves, but might have some useful info for your situation as well. I have had to do death admin both for my late husband and mother so I sympathise, just take it step by step and you'll get through it.

I'm sorry to hear of your loss, Pia. May I suggest the Citizen's Advice Bureau? While I could have coped easily, currently my head is in turmoil following my husband's cardiac arrest and resultant brain damage. I need to complete many documents to access carers post hospital etc. The CAB are so helpful - I could not be more grateful. Does anyone have good outcomes to tell me of those who have survived a cardiac arrest? I really could do with some positive news. Good luck, Pia.