Estate Administration

Estate After Death Checklist: First 90 Days

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Key takeaways

• Order 10-15 certified death certificates all at once. Because you will need to supply original death certificates (no photocopies) to banks, life insurance companies, credit card companies, etc. within estate matters, it makes sense to order 10-15 copies of the death certificate at once to save time and money in the long run.
• Execute a handful of critical executor functions at specific points in time or risk suffering creditor claim penalties including interest and late charges, or suffer other adverse consequences including tax penalties.
• Notify Social Security before contacting banks since benefits paid after the date of death are subject to being clawed back by Social Security and such notification to SSA will alert other agencies as needed.
• Trustees are established outside of probate and have specific deadlines including notification of beneficiaries which create personal liability for failure.
• Distribution: This is the last step of the process. Distribution should include payment of estate taxes and other valid claims against the estate of the deceased person before any assets can be distributed to the heirs of the deceased individual. Failure to comply with this step can result in a shortage of assets to distribute to the heirs of the deceased with the amount of the shortage being returned to the Estate of the deceased individual.

If the checklist is not organized by the relevant deadlines, then securing the property and finding the will within the first week of a death are not followed by timely filing of probate and the claims for life insurance within their respective time frames, and then a timely notification of banks and on line services with an appropriate documentation in order for them to close out on-line services and for banker to close accounts for the Estate holder.

The tasks for the first 24-72 hours after a person's death include securing the home and its contents, locating the decedent's will and death certificates, securing life insurance proceeds, and identifying funeral instructions among other things.

In the first 72 hours after a loved one's death, there are a number of steps that need to be taken in order to start the estate process. These include obtaining certified copies of the death certificate, securing the loved one's home and other assets, notifying family and friends of the loved one's passing, reviewing any pre-arranged funeral instructions of the loved one, and locating the will of the loved one. Note that until a will is located and a will signed by the funeral home, any distributions to family and friends can be given away by the executor or personal representative of the estate and the executor or personal representative could potentially inherit the loss of being the personal representative of the loved one's estate as well as all of the time and effort spent in probating the estate of the loved one.

How many certified death certificates to order and why 10-15

Order 10-15 certified death certificates from the funeral home where your parent passed away. Many banks, life insurance companies, creditors and other parties require original copies of certified death certificates (as opposed to photocopies). Ordering 10-15 certified copies at one time is cheaper than ordering additional copies later as needed. Keep a record of who received what copy. If your parent had planned for these items ahead of time, they would likely be included in a shared document online such as part of a will or in a digital death binder. See our Florida Estate Planning Checklist to see what documents your parent may have created to facilitate your parent's estate.

Securing the property in hurricane-prone states before you leave

Hurricane season: lock up the property and remove valuables and important papers. Notify the post office to cease delivery of mail and look up the status of current property insurance. As the estates of the recently deceased transition into tax returns for the deceased, transfer the originals of all important papers to a secure vault within a week. The final tax return of the estate of a recently deceased person must be filed by the surviving spouse or by the executor of the estate of the recently deceased person within a time frame specified by the IRS. Many first-time executors are surprised by the timing of this requirement.

What specific time limits exist for the numerous tasks that an estate administrator must complete and what negative consequences result from failing to meet such time limits?

Although most tasks to complete after death have to be done in a specific order, a few of them have to be completed by a certain time, and missing a deadline can result in serious consequences for the person responsible.

Days 1-30: will location, probate petition, securing assets

First find the will, death certificates and deed(s). Next prepare the probate petition and have it filed with the probate court as soon as possible after death with appointment of a Personal Representative (also known as an Executor). Until the Personal Representative is appointed, the estate of the deceased person cannot access online accounts to manage them. Secure the physical property as well by changing the locks, make sure the property is still insured and stop or forward the mail. This can be a major problem if a hurricane hits during the storm season and the property is left empty and uninsured.

Days 30-90: creditor notices, insurance claims, account freezes

After appointment by the Probate Court, the executor needs to give formal notice to all potential creditors that they have a specified time period to come forward and file a claim against the estate of the deceased person (e.g., 3 months). life insurance benefits can typically be paid to beneficiaries by the insurance company using only a death certificate and the policy. The executor should also place a "hold" on all accounts that have recurring payments and open an "estate checking account".

What breaks if done late: creditor penalties, claim denials, personal liability

In distribution, taxes and claims must be paid before beneficiaries are paid. That which is left over can be paid to the beneficiaries but if there is a shortage, that is the executor's responsibility.

What documents do I need to review before I start to complete each of the tasks of the Executor?

A bundle of key documents is required to distribute, file and collect on behalf of a deceased person and this bundle needs to be gathered up before you start to do any of the above tasks. Typically this would include 10 or so certified copies of the death certificate for banks, life insurance companies and even the SSA for the purpose of reporting a death and processing survivor benefits. In addition to the above mentioned documents you will also require a letter(s) testamentary (such as Letters of Administration) issued by the relevant court plus a current government issued ID.

Task-specific extras (trusts, deeds, digital account access)

Most of the above tasks also require more for Trusts than for Wills, i.e., the full Trust instrument (e.g. Declaration of Trust) as opposed to only the Will, and, in respect of a probate inventory, copies of all Deeds, together with mortgage statements and current account statements for all Assets. Access to on-line Digital Accounts also will typically require written instructions and passwords left by the deceased.

Note that storing only passwords (e.g., online accounts) in one's head is mere guessing. A digital death binder, which can be prepared long in advance, such as with DokuDocs, enables the executor to easily find what the deceased had set up in cyberspace. We outline digital estate planning in more detail here.

How does the checklist for a Trustee differ from that of an Executor?

Unlike the probate administration of a deceased person's estate by an executor, a trustee of a Revocable Living Trust administration of assets held in trust does not go through the probate process and thus does not need to go through all of the steps for a probate administration.

Executor duties that trustees don't have

The only duty that an Executor has that a Trustee does not is to petition the court to open a Probate of Estate, publish notices to Settlor's creditors (where publication is required), and then wait out the time allowed by law for all creditors to file claims against the estate. If all of the Settlor's property was transferred into and held in the name of the Trust during the Settlor's lifetime, there may be no role for an Executor at all.

Trustee duties that executors don't have

The trustee must give formal notice to all of the trust's beneficiaries. He must retitle all of the assets held in the trust's name with a Trustee's Deed. He must prepare and file the trust's tax returns. And he must provide formal accountings to all of the trust's beneficiaries from time to time -- often years after the first accountings have been distributed. As we note in our limitation of liability terms, the personal exposure of a trustee to delay in sending such required notice or in providing required accountings is substantial.

When you hold both roles

If the deceased had established a trust with a will to pour assets into the trust, then you will probably act as Trustee and Executor. In general, you should complete the trust administration first and then distribute the assets in the will's probate estate.

In reviewing the responsibilities of the tasks of the estate after death checklist across different provinces or states i.e. for British Columbia (Canada), we can see that there are some significant changes as well as responsibilities that need to be considered first.

While the basic list of responsibilities after a death found in the after a death checklist are generally consistent across all U.S. states and provinces (except for Louisiana), the sequence of these responsibilities and even the list itself can differ from state to state and province to province. For the checklist found here we looked at BC, Florida and California but there are many other states with their own versions of an after a death checklist.

After a death checklist BC: WESA notice and probate fees

Under British Columbia's WESA, before a grant of probate can be issued, notice of an application for a grant of probate must be given to all beneficiaries and all other parties who would be contingently interested in the assets of the deceased person. That notice must be given within 10 business days of the application being made. (As noted above, administration of an estate that is situated in BC but is being managed from outside of the province would proceed as if all of the required notices had already been given).

Florida-specific steps: homestead, creditor periods, hurricane-damaged records

In contrast, for Florida estates, creditors are given the entire length of time that the administration of an estate is to take to file their claims. As such, execution of the will and distribution are separate from the timely filing of a creditor's claim as governed by the provisions of Chapter 733, Florida Statutes. That being said, homestead property is excluded from an estate's assets that are required to be probated and, thus, an individual who has held homestead property at his or her primary residence at the time of his or her death may not need a personal representative to administer his or her estate. The certified copies of records that are required to be filed with the Court in the event of a lost record as a result of a hurricane, for example, are copies of records that are found in the various county offices throughout the State.

When we reference "small estates" we have to refer to the specific threshold for the state in which your parent passed away. Just like storage of the will and other documents online (more on that here) can present unique challenges in the event of your parent's passing, the paperwork for passing away in different states can have unique delays as well.

When do you contact the banks, government agencies and insurance companies and in what order?

Every institution needs to be called. They either start to pay out monies when a person passes away and those monies are then repaid by the Social Security Administration after the Social Security Administration has been notified of the death, or there is a risk of fraud or of an account being withdrawn accidentally by someone. The sequence of institutions that need to be called is therefore: (1) Social Security Administration in order to stop payments from being made after the date of death and to start the process of the repaying of any monies which have been paid after the date of death; and (2) banks and credit card companies and so on in order to have the accounts of the deceased person locked or to have the accounts of the deceased person converted to an estate account.

Why Social Security comes before the banks

It is important to note that Social Security must be notified first because once Social Security is notified of a death, all benefits that are paid after the date of death will be clawed back. SSA records the death in the Social Security database, which also alerts other government agencies to the death. Notify the banks and government agencies in the order that will allow you to stop money from flowing and start completing the necessary death and estate documents.

The credit-bureau step that prevents identity theft of the deceased

Next, contact the three major credit bureaus (Equifax, Experian, TransUnion) to put a credit freeze on the deceased's credit file. This should only take a few hours of your time, and will help protect against most forms of post-death identity theft. Note that you will also need to cancel the deceased's license at the DMV as well.

What steps should an Executor of a deceased person's estate take to manage digital accounts?

Platform-by-platform deletion and memorialization windows

Every account holder has set their own account rules. Apple requires a legacy contact with access key before it hands over any data to others. Google's Inactive Account Manager will handed over data to a person that the account holder had previously selected to a contact to release the data after a pre-determined amount of time has elapsed (Google Account Help). For Facebook, memorialisation or deletion of the account permanently can be requested via their designated process.

Waiting is not neutral here. A small number of online-only accounts (e.g. prepaid cards and neo-banks with no physical bank or safe location and which send no paper statements at all) may disappear completely from view of all family members and close friends of the deceased person and never generate any statements at all addressed to the deceased person. All such online accounts must therefore be discovered and their contents dealt with in week one of the probate process (here as elsewhere in this checklist 6-12 months). The digital sweep through all online accounts of the deceased person is necessary to ensure that all assets of the deceased person are found in time and will not get left behind to risk having to be dealt with by someone entirely outside the family and close friends of the deceased person in a completely unforeseen manner, contrary to the wishes of the deceased person as expressed in the will of the deceased person. Indeed, in British Columbia, WESA probate notice requirements create a number of strict time limits that must be met in order to ensure that all necessary parties are notified in due course of the probate of a will of a deceased person, and that all necessary online accounts of the deceased person are discovered in due course and their contents administered accordingly in due course, and failure to meet any one of these strict time limits creates the risk that all of the online accounts of the deceased person that have not been discovered by the time the necessary time limit has passed will have to be administered by someone entirely outside the family and close friends of the deceased person in a completely unforeseen manner, contrary to the wishes of the deceased person as expressed in the will of the deceased person. In order to avoid all of this, all online accounts of the deceased person must therefore be discovered in week one of the probate process (here as elsewhere in this checklist 6-12 months).

Finding accounts nobody told you about

Go through the deceased's email account. Search for terms like "statement", "receipt", "invoice" and for login prompts for password managers. Look for installed apps on the deceased's phone for banking services that you have not been told about. Also check for tax returns and for unknown payments to accounts such as for utility bills.

Where a digital death binder prevents this step from stalling

Also important: The death binder should have been set up long before you need it. This is where you store all of the online accounts for the deceased including their logins, the legacy contact for each account and a list of all online accounts. DokuDocs offers a very good death binder that you can fill out in advance of death.

Average probate takes 6-12 months, and disorganized documents are what stretch it into years. If your executor spends the first 90 days hunting for the will, account numbers, and the deed, every deadline in this checklist is already at risk.

Average probate time is 6-12 months. So if your Executor has to spend the first 3 months of that looking for your Will, account numbers and deed then all of the other items on this checklist are going to be late as well.

What does 'extremely prepared' look like before a death occurs?

A "digital death binder" containing a will, trust, powers of attorney, deeds, life insurance policies and account information, for example, could be stored on line and found by an executor within 90 days of a person's death. Many families have already moved to online storage of their important papers, for example following the devastation caused by Hurricane Ian when most of a family's papers were lost.

Honest comparison of document storage for wills, estate planning and digital assets online: DokuDocs vs Passings vs GoodTrust vs Everplans.

Note that DokuDocs does not help you create a complete estate plan. That is what Trust & Will does. A number of other services do as well, such as Passings (passings.io) and GoodTrust (mygoodtrust.com). Everplans is another such service.

FAQ

How long does an executor have to settle an estate?

While it takes on average 6-12 months to complete probate, there is no single time frame. The time frame for filing a probate petition is typically several weeks to months after a person's death. Creditor notice periods can take 3-6 months to pass. Finally, the tax return for the estate is due for filing the following year.

What is the difference between probate and trust administration after a death?

Probate involves a court process in which a person (executor) is appointed to manage the affairs of the deceased in order to distribute assets to those entitled to receive them (using the will for guidance). As Trustee of a trust, an administrator manages assets within a trust outside of Probate, notifying relevant parties of their role and distributing assets and providing accountings to beneficiaries. The administrator, however, runs the risk of personal liability for all actions with regard to notice and deadlines.

Do I need probate if there is a will in Florida?

It typically doesn't matter if there is a Will -- a Will just tells the Court who gets what in the estate. Homestead property and certain other assets may pass outside of probate and in some limited circumstances a "small estate" may be processed as a "shortcut" probate but typically probate is required for all titled assets (e.g. bank accounts and real estate) in Florida. The creditor claim period for any debtor in the estate runs through the entire period of time of administration of the estate under Fla. Stat. chapter 733.

What if the Executor can't find the Deceased Person's Will?

If there is no personal representative appointed then no one can deal with bank and safety deposit accounts, and other assets of the deceased. He or she can petition the probate court for appointment as personal representative without the original will being produced. Copy(ies) of the will with witness signatures may be required however.

Who pays the deceased's bills before probate is finished?

It is generally unacceptable for individuals to pay the deceased's bills prior to completion of the probate process. Although bills should be paid as soon as possible, the preferred approach is for the personal representative to open an Estate check account to pay valid debts in accordance with the STATE PRIORITY OF PAYMENT OF DEBTS AND EXPENSES listed below. Although life insurance proceeds are paid directly to the beneficiaries listed in the policy, payment of claims against the estate of a deceased person by heirs or family and friends can subject them to liability for later uncovered taxes or claims by creditors.