What to do next after your parents die?...?

Question

For example, you are a 21 year old ONLY child who's living in a house with your parents. The rest of your family lives in another country. Your parents get into a car accident and die.

Please tell me thoroughly what are you to do next?? (regarding the house, money, insurance, funeral, attending college, etc) I would great appreciate it. Thank you so much!

(I know, this is a realllllly sad topic...but it's good to know about these things...life is so unpredictable!) =(

Answer 1

I was too young to do it by myself but I helped my grandfather with the arrangements: The hospital made suggestions regarding the funeral home. These operations guide you through the process of the funeral, the graveside and memorial services, etc – that part is emotionally (and can be financially) hard, but administratively it’s simple.

My dad’s lawyer helped us with the ‘estate’ all the assets, bank accounts, mortgage, etc. My parents didn’t have a will – who plans on dying in their early thirties – but since my granddad and I were the only remaining relatives on both sides, there wasn’t much dispute about what goes to whom anyway. The tricky part was to find all the related paperwork among my parent’s files. The lawyer also helped grandfather become my legal guardian and applying for the survivor benefits Social Security provides for widow(er)s and orphans.

He gave us a list of things we should do on our end as well: Go through my parents bills to identify professional services they subscribed to and cancel them - utilities, insurances, newspapers/magazines, phones, TV. In many cases we needed the death certificates (or at least copies of them) to cancel a service that my parents had started.

To make some of these things easier, ask your parents to

- Compose a will and keep it with a (probate) lawyer
- Tell you about the desired funeral arrangements
- Create a short ‘directory’ to all their accounts (bank, credit card, brokerage, mortgage, insurance, any recurring payments, etc) that would need attention in case of their death and keep that list current, possibly keeping a copy with the lawyer.

Answer 2

Assuming your parents first land at a hospital, you will be talking to a "charge nurse" regarding what to do next.
You will be asked whether you want an autopsy (you probably won't need that), then you will be asked which funeral home you would like to have their bodies sent to... this is where the real decision making process begins... and it is all outrageously expensive.

I would suggest getting with your parents and telling them that if they have any particular wishes for the disposition of their own remains, they need to go to a funeral home and make those arrangements NOW. If they buy the funeral policy, it will be carried out to the letter... end of story.
If they leave it to a 21 year-old who is just barely starting to get established, their bodies may very well wind up in a "potter's field" for indigents.

Answer 3

The first thing I did, in making the arrangements for the funerals, was order enough death certificates to have on hand when I needed to contact the banks and any accounts that my parents had. That is one of the most important pieces of papers you need. I think I ordered ten and then made copies of some because some companies and government agencies will take faxes and copies.

You need to contact any lawyers your parents used to find out about wills, trusts and the estate. You need to know who they appointed as trustees of their properties. If it is you, then you need to begin to act on things like closing accounts and protecting their personal information.

Any money that was left by them has to be distributed according to their wishes. If no will or trust was left, then you need to contact an attorney right away. You will be surprised how people of things just pop up wanting to get to the estate so you need someone to advise you.

So sorry for your loss...