I want to third getting multiple copies of the death certificate. I don’t know about Texas, but when my father died here in Arizona, I could get copies from the funeral home up to 30 days after his death. After that, I had to order them from the state at $20 per copy.
Woah. I picked a helluva day to check the dope after months away.
You’re a great poster, always enjoyed your posts. I remember when you and mr. horseshoe got married after being together for awhile.
I wish you the best in sorting through all the paperwork mess apart from the emotional turmoil.
I am not a lawyer (and perhaps one will come along shortly), but having dealt with my father’s affairs and my wife’s parents, I will explain how I understand it: Any property acquired during your marriage belonged to both of you, unless stated otherwise in a will. So, you’re not in limbo with regards to the house, cars, etc. and you can change names on titles and deeds when you feel like dealing with it.
I sort of went through this with my late aunt. The first thing you should do is go to a local bookshop and look for books on this subject and on probate. These books should give you chapter and verse on what to do: check-lists, hints and tips, drafts, everything.
Before you donate any medical equipment, find out if they are yours or if insurance rented them for you. A simple phone call to the insurance company or the medical supplier should tell you. If they were rented, have the company pick it up. You shouldn’t have to deal with it. (We had an oops with my mother and donated a wheelchair that had been rented. They forgave it, but it was annoying and scary to think we might end up owing a lot of money.)
If you want to donate his clothes, first imagine how you would feel if you encountered someone else wearing his shirt in the grocery store. You may have second thoughts about donating.
Get receipts for anything you donate. It may seem inconsequential now, but it may help at tax time, and you know he would want you to be as taken care of as possible.
I wish I had kept enough of my mom’s clothes to make a quilt for my niece, so think about that kind of thing.
You don’t need to do these things right away. You may feel like you need to keep busy, and clearing things out may help. You can also wait as long as you want.
You can ask a friend to come over and sit with you.
If there’s credit card bills, medical bills, etc., many companies will just write it off. Others may come after you. Find out from an attorney if you are legally required to pay before making any payments. This info for your stars may be online or the local hospice. If you find you have to pay, offer to negotiate. Some credit companies will try to get you to pay out of a sense of obligation even if you are not legally required. Don’t do that. You need the money more than they do.
Again, I’m sorry for your loss.
Lots of good suggestions for medical equipment. I’ll throw one other option out there - I sometimes work (and always support) a charity that specializes in disaster relief for the underserved and disabled. I don’t know if they have a direct presence in the DWF/FW area, but I’m sure there is a contact there. These are good people. If you want to go that route, let me know, and I’ll put things in motion.
I don’t have much else useful for this thread. I do know one lawyer in DFW, but she’s a patent attorney. I don’t think she can help too much.
Um…When I have something stressful going on, and tons of things to do, I find it’s helpful to keep a piece of paper or a small pad with me, and a pen. Or a smartphone. Then I can just take a note wherever I am, when I think of something. Then - and this is the best part - cross off the item when it’s taken care of.
What does this do to solely owed debt, e.g. if he had a credit card in his own name?
It’s still not a bad idea to move things into your own name as you have the time, but may not be as urgent.
I would definitely suggest at least a consult with an estate attorney. Whether you need anything beyond that, I wouldn’t know, but he or she could give you some guidance for a reasonable consulting fee.
I was going to suggest the same, to get an answer to just that question. In states that aren’t community property states, the short version is that deceased’s debts only have to be paid to the extent that he had assets in his own name to cover those debts, and once those are exhausted, his debts die with him, and the survivors have no further responsibility.
But back in my long-ago days as a trusts and estates paralegal, I never had any dealings with community property states, so I completely don’t know that territory.
Auntie Pam has some good advice. When my SO died, I went through 13 copies of the death certificate, so getting extra copies is a good idea. The folks in social services where his body was donated should be able to help with that.
In our case, I donated everything that was still in good shape that his family or I didn’t want. Although it didn’t apply to us, local churches in our area accept donations of medical equipment and will do pickups.
Don’t get in a hurry to drastically change things right away. You’ll know when you’re ready.
Social Security
DMV - take title and Death cert, get title in your name
Rent/Mortgage/Deed
Insurance
Post Office - you may be able to stop delivery. Have no idea.
See if there is a Legal Aid operation in your county - they will have paralegals and/or law students who can run through the list in their sleep.
I am 90% certain that any debts which were his before marriage are presumed discharged, unless you did something to assert ownership of the debt.
Taxes - if your return is simple enough, and you are used to filing yourself, a call or two to the IRS and/or Texas Tax Board should get you through that.
Again, lots of legally-recognized copies of death cert.
If there is a will, he should have named an executor/executrix (I HATE that “trix” ending!), who will be charged with all of this.
If he died intestate, things vary considerably (as I understand it) by State, so, again, Legal Aid.
And again, deepest condolences. There are simply no words to even come close, are there?
Go ahead and pull all 3 of his free annual credit reports for this year, if they haven’t already been done. The free ones are at annualcreditreport.com. This will give you a list of credit issued in his SSN so there aren’t any nasty surprises to pop up in a year or so. Crazier things have happened.
Don’t wait to pull them; the credit reporting agencies will be alerted within the month if not sooner that he’s passed and they’ll no longer be easily available.
This is all I have to add to the good advice given above. Was he a veteran? There may be other things you’re entitled to.
SO sorry to hear about your loss, Shoe. I’m shocked I didn’t see your original thread until tonite.
From someone who’s been there: it will get easier, I promise.
Okay, fourthing the need for beaucoux copies of the death certificate. You WILL need them all.
I’m probably far too late for this, but get the lockbox cleaned out asap - if you have one. The bank will freeze all assets for the duration until the will goes into probate, including any and all lock boxes that have Mister Shoe’s name on them.
Getting magazine subscriptions, including anything related to Mister Shoe’s alma mater and any other hobbies or interests he subscribed to, stopped. Some want copies of the cert, some didn’t. Same goes for credit cards.
The hardest to convince? My mother’s sorority. My dad’s business college. For some reason, *years *after his death, his business college found me with the same last name and I got BOMBARDED with Kellog Business College materials. Thank you so much, Northwestern U.
It didn’t stop until I put together a mild nastygram with a copy of the DC and sent it off by snailmail. It stopped instantly after that.
Make sure you alter your will accordingly. Not this very instant, but soon. Because you just never know.
Voting records. You will need to notify the county clerk’s office at some point before the November election happens. It took me two tries at different election seasons to convince my county clerk that my mother was in No Condition to cast a vote! :smack:
sneaks in, hoping that someone will bump my name off
I am so sorry about that you lost your life partner. I honestly have no words to speak, so please don’t think I’m rude or uncaring.
My only advice is that you have the funeral home send a notorized copy of the death certificate to your County Clerk and have it recorded. That way, 20 years later, when you need to find a copy because something glitched…you will know just where to get a legal copy.
I’d suggest finding out if any outstanding hospital bills are still your responsibility. I think you said in another thread that he was ill for over a year? There’s probably lots of medical bills.
You might consider a storage locker for items that you clear out of the house. Part of my mom’s grieving process was clearing out items from the house that reminded her of dad. She just went non-stop for a solid week. She doesn’t even remember throwing out some of that stuff and we both regret that its gone. Grief does strange things to us. There was one small desk area where dad always emptied out his pockets, took off his watch, keys, and wallet. She’s never touch that desk in the last two years. His voice is still on the answering machine too. I find it very comforting to call and hear him again.
Mom sold dad’s truck and got a rebate on her auto insurance. She had just renewed it for both vehicles a few weeks before he passed. So it was a significant rebate.
She also sold his garden tractor, lawn mowers, and chainsaws etc. She hired someone to keep the lawn mowed.
Since the credit cards are probably in both your names, I don’t know that you would necessarily want to cancel them if you need them. FIRST find out which you do have to pay and if any might be forgiven. Some might reduce the balance. Some might let you negotiate a lower monthly payment. I would go to Legal Aid (free) and let them help with that. Also, a lot of cities have social workers (free) who can help you with these things and would also know of support groups, food banks etc. Every little bit helps.
If the medical equipment isn’t rented, you might want to donate one or two things but I would sell the rest. Charity begins at home. And yes, you don’t have to make those decisions right now. But you might want to see if there’s anything his parents would like to keep—a picture, a favorite shirt…
Oh, and you might be able to get help with your utility bills. I would contact every place you make payments to see what can be done. Our bank has a free $1,000.00 policy on my husband. Yours might, too.
I’ve found that the thing about losing somebody is that you barely have time to grieve. I don’t know if that’s a good thing or not.
When my Mother died, my Father paid off thousand$ in credit card debt (which was mostly kept secret from him). He later found out from his attorney that he did not need to pay any of it.
So I definitely would not follow any advice to just go ahead and pay credit card debt or even attempt to negotiate it at all. There might not be any debt to pay or negotiate.
My mom just died last month and I can be the 93rd person to recommend getting multiple original death certificates.
Basically any place you will want to get money out of.
Almost every place was easy to deal with - except for:
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Comcast. For some reason they are the only ones that want a copy of the obituary to close the account. Not to settle the debt or anything - we are paying it. Apparently that isn’t enough. The electric company had no problem shutting off power to my oxygen bound mother (I think some of that plugged into the wall, but not really sure - I know some was portable). Phone company didn’t care - they shut off the phone service. But wouldn’t want mom to miss Matlock - actually for her it was “Criminal Minds”.
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Social security - not sure what is going on there yet - apparently she was supposed to get her last months check - and now it isn’t being auto deposited. I guess they are sending the check.
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DMV/MVA - this took us the longest time - probably 3 hours of waiting in line (as did everyone else that day on the “title side”. We needed “Letters of Administration” from the registrar of wills (which was actually very easy - and they were very helpful). They even made up a spreadsheet and totaled all our costs up (for food, obit, etc.) - to keep estate fee low - and it was.
Most of the stuff is easy as my mom had “pay on death” for everything. And all we needed was to show the bank that and they cut us a check. Pay on death doesn’t go through probate (usually I think) - make sure you use it and keep up to date (as it overrides what is on the will I am told).
Still getting some paperwork together for life insurance and other accounts. They all want original copies of death certificate (the certified copies are all “originals”). The bank just photocopied it - while other institutions I have talked to say they are keeping them.
Sorry about your husband.
Sorry, I should have mentioned this - making a payment on a credit card is, at least in some places, an affirmation of the debt.
Unless the card is in your AND ONLY your name, check out your legal status BEFORE making a payment…
The suggestion of a County worker was a good one for most things; don’t know if I’d trust their word on matters legal
And yes, pull those credit reports (they report is free - they charge if you actually want to know the score. You don’t need the score.
If it turns out he had made a financial mess and hadn’t told you about it, find out now.
Bankruptcy is always an option if the debs falling on you are too great.
Before doing anything financial, you should confirm that you are the executor of his estate. This is almost certainly the case, of course, but it’s worth confirming.