I’ve been working with my father for the past several years. We run a small business specializing in domestic water systems, wells and water pumps. The business was started by my grandfather. My father has been the face of the company for the last 30 years. He’s in general handled most of the sales related things, so was almost always the contact person. There are no aspects of the company I’m unfamiliar with.
My father passed away unexpectedly today of cardiac arrest. He was 64 and to all appearances in good health.
Now I need to pick up and keep things moving. I understand these things happen and my customers will understand that as well. I’m looking for advice or anecdotes from people who have been in a similar situation or who have had a contractor die on them.
Almost all our work has been for existing customers and we no longer advertise, so anyone calling will have known my father. In some cases they’ll have known him longer than I have. Any ideas on how to approach this? How do I inform them when they call looking for him? I’m not very excited about being a grief consular to anyone he’s worked for nor am I really prepared to maintain my composure listening to stories from them of his life.
On the legal side my father did nothing to prepare for this and the business is completely in his name. My older brother is an attorney and will be looking into how things can be transferred but estate is not his area of law. I’m not sure how quickly his assets will be frozen(not that there is much to begin with). but there are things like phones and vehicles and checking accounts to deal with. He’d just handled the business taxes and I think the IRS is the only entity owed money. They are owed more than is in his accounts. should I expect for they’ll want to settle that debt?
Kind thoughts are appreciated but need not be posted in the thread.
I’m sorry about your loss. You must’ve been very close after working together so long.
Do you have any particularly large customers? I don’t get the impression that’s a big part of your business, but maybe an apartment complex or commercial customer? If I did, I might stop by/call to introduce or reintroduce myself, once an appropriate mourning period has gone by.
For small residential customers, even long term customers, I don’t personally think notifying them would be appropriate. I’m sure they’ll be sad but I think it’s the sort of news you hear about eventually.
As far as notifying them when they do call and ask for him, just be direct, “I’m sorry but he passed away last October. I can help you with anything you might need.”
My own father passed away last December and although we didn’t do business together, I managed all his affairs and I’ve informed countless business-related people. Everyone either expresses condolences to me or doesn’t even think to do that. It was only in the first month or so I ever had to play grief counselor and that was when notifying personal friends and family.
Your father’s personal assets (which sound like they include all the business assets) are never “frozen” but they become the property of his estate the moment he passed away.
Can you afford an estate lawyer? Their expertise may be extremely helpful in freeing up the business assets so you can continue operations. I don’t know anything about that but I do know settling his estate will take way longer than any normal business can afford to be without its assets. That said, I’m sure your situation is extremely common and someone who does know about it will be able to handle it.
You will almost certainly need to hire an estate attorney.
Yes, this. Contact the bank ASAP (go in person if possible) that holds the business accounts. They should be able to help you with a good chunk of your questions. If they can’t answer them, they can provide some direction.
Try not to make any financial decisions for as long as possible… preferably a week or longer.
My mom passed a couple months ago. Her CU froze her accounts immediately after I informed them of her death which proved a bit difficult to navigate. I was the trustee but the CU didn’t care. I had to create a new tax ID for her irrevocable trust and they eventually moved her money over. I bring this up to warn that some institutions do freeze accounts so check their policy before divulging information about your dad passing. A couple extra weeks to get new accounts set up for the business could prove very important.
So sorry for your loss. This is going to be hard enough without the business to take care of.
Draw up a customer list and send out a short letter or card letting them know. Reassure that their needs will still be met. Remind them that you’re the third generation and will keep the same standards that your Father and Grandfather instilled in you. Be sure to let them know instead of flowers send a donation to the American Heart Foundation or something. So it doesn’t look like your asking for anything.
I second getting a lawyer to keep things running smooth.
Get an estate lawyer. Depending on how the business was organized if you continue it on your own you could be personally liable for any loss and if you make a profit the estate gets it.
(You would not be the first well meaning child that got sued by other greedy relatives.)
Unfortunately due to logistics contacting customers preemptively is not viable. We have sum 3000 customers in our files, which are not digitized, so it would be too labor intensive to carry it out. It would certainly be my preference and could drum up business notifying homes that have changed ownership of their previous service providers. I may pursue the option at a later date as resources allow.
I’m not without legal advice. As I mentioned my brother is an attorney as well as my sister in law. My sister in laws former firm is likely to be providing us with legal services free of charge as a favor to her. Interested parties are myself and my four siblings. My brother will be appointed executor of the estate unanimously determined. I’m the only one with knowledge, interest, and ability to deal with the business and I anticipate no conflicts.
In the meantime the business was operating as a DBA, essentially it terminates with my fathers passing. For ease and protection from potentially unknown debts the course of action is going to be me starting my own business entity and operating as a different company. My last name is more well known than the company name anyway.
When things are settled I’ll see about either transferring the company and any remaining assets to myself and asking the town to rescind the business name and applying for it myself.
On a personal level it was certainly a rough day contacting friends and family to inform them of his passing as well as calling scheduled appointments to postpone appointments and explain his passing.
I think it’s extremely important to notify all of the customers and vendors of the death, as soon as possible. At the very least, notify anyone you think might call you someday. Not only will it help to preserve the professional relationship, it will save you some emotional pain of repeating the story to everyone individually. (Trust me, I know. My mother died two days before the first day of 8th grade. So my response to “How was your summer?” was “Great up until my mom got run over by a car.”)
I also think it’s extremely important that any business keep contact information in a digital format.
So my recommendation is to look at this as an opportunity to kill two birds with one stone. Hire an intern or a temp and let them have at it.
While they’re entering the data, they can be answering the phone and keeping the business going so that you don’t have to be “on” all the time.
This sounds like a really terrible idea to me … advertising your father’s death?!
Please accept my condolences as well.
As to continuing the business in a practical sense – did your father do any of the actual physical work of the business – installing, repairing, etc.? If so, I would make my first priority to be finding whether you need someone in to meet the obligations you already have. And if so, getsomeone immediately.
If not, that’s an advantage for a couple of reasons – one is that you can continue to meet your service obligations, and two that you can reassure customers of that fact, and that they can expect the same level of operational performance that they’ve always gotten.
The same question goes about your billing – if dad handled it, you need someone else pretty quick. But it’s a bit lower a priority, IMO, because not many of your customers will be terribly upset by getting their bills a couple of weeks later than they normally would.
Since you don’t use advertising and you seem to have a solid customer base because of past history together, I wouldn’t do an outreach campaign to tell people about this. Instead, I would prepare a script to address the issue with incoming callers, reassuring them that your first priority for the company is meeting your obligations to your customers. The reset you can be vague about.
Also, if you know any of your dad’s good business-related friends, I WOULD contact them directly to let them know, and have information about a memorial servce and burial available.