# When someone who lives alone dies.. **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [January 18, 2009, 7:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873 "2009-01-18T19:06:23Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Beware\_of\_Doug](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/278dde/32.png) [@Beware\_of\_Doug](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Beware_of_Doug)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 3:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/21 "2009-01-19T15:21:21Z")
> [@Uncle Brother Walker](#): > > I know it sounds grim, but hey, what’s a single guy to do? I don’t want to die and have my body rotting for who knows how long before somebody figures it out. I do. I am a deeply antisocial loner, and I would like to be crushed by hoarded possessions and nibbled by hungry pets. ---
**Author:** ![Polycarp](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/82dd89/32.png) [@Polycarp](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Polycarp)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 3:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/22 "2009-01-19T15:29:46Z")
> [@Uncle\_Brother\_Walker](#): > > I live alone (for now). I have a plan. I have several close friends of 10+ years who, by coincidence, live in my condo building. We all love it here and have no immediate plans to go anywhere else. One of these friends and I have discussed ‘a letter’ I have written. This letter clearly outlines my intent and plans if I die while living alone. Funeral plans, disposition of the body and distribution of personal property. She even gets a 10% cut of the insurance plan because while she isn’t family, she has agreed to handle the gruesome details, to include discovery of the body and calling the authorities. The letter contains all important documents, to include Social Security card, birth certificate, DD 214 (to document military death benefits), how to contact family members and insurance documents. > > I know it sounds grim, but hey, what’s a single guy to do? I don’t want to die and have my body rotting for who knows how long before somebody figures it out. Your ‘letter’ looks to me (an educated layman without detailed knowledge of Marylnd law) like it meets the requirements for a holographic (handwritten) will. But my comment would be that you should contact Legal Aid or the Bar Association to get referred to a low-/no-cost consultation with a lawyer practicing Maryland probate law, to make sure you’ve jumped all the hurdles, crossed all the I’s and dotted all the T’s that the Maryland legislature has een fit to put in place for holographic wills. The time to find out about the validity of something that you’re depending on to enable someone to carry out your wishes after you’re gone, whether you call it ‘the letter’ or Last Will and Testament, is before you go. After you’re gone is too late, and Probate judges are even worse than CSICOP at believing in seances! 😉 ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/23 "2009-01-19T15:56:13Z")
I think the case I heard where the person was dead for 7 years was in the US, not Spain. But I could be wrong. ---
**Author:** ![RandMcnally](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b782af/32.png) [@RandMcnally](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RandMcnally)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/24 "2009-01-19T16:08:59Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > The other one **Bijou** is referring to happened in Girona, Spain in 2007. A man bought a foreclosed home and found the mummified remains of a woman in her 50s sitting on the couch. She was estranged form her children who live in Madrid. Police wondered how the hell the bank would sell the property without inspecting it, but they didn’t do anything illegal. The woman had stopped making her payments in 2001. In a situation like this, can the man get his money back from the bank, or is as-is as-is? ---
**Author:** ![Bijou\_Drains](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bijou_drains/32/2814_2.png) [@Bijou\_Drains](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bijou_Drains)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/25 "2009-01-19T16:21:20Z")
In the US you have a few days to cancel a mortgage you just received. Not sure if that is true in other countries. ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/26 "2009-01-19T16:53:36Z")
The buyer could cancel the deal for “nondisclosure.” ---
**Author:** ![Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9d8465/32.png) [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swallowed_My_Cellphone)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/27 "2009-01-19T17:22:16Z")
> [@Bijou\_Drains](#): > > I think the case I heard where the person was dead for 7 years was in the US, not Spain. But I could be wrong. I do also vaguely remember another couple cases, but so far my Google-fu has failed. For example, I vaguely recall some story about a guy who died (suicide?) in an unfinished condo development in Japan, and a foreclosed house in the U.S. (probably the one you’re referring to). ---
**Author:** ![KneadToKnow](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kneadtoknow/32/3999_2.png) [@KneadToKnow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KneadToKnow)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 5:44pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/28 "2009-01-19T17:44:11Z")
> [@Kneepants\_Erasmus\_the\_Humanist](#): > > This American Life broadcast a story a few weeks ago about the people whose job is to deal with these situations. Exactly what I came in to say. ---
**Author:** ![rocking\_chair](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/rocking_chair/32/2918_2.png) [@rocking\_chair](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rocking_chair)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 6:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/29 "2009-01-19T18:23:46Z")
> [@Uncommon\_Sense](#): > > You’d think the post man would have noticed the mail box getting full? Unless he had a slot in the front door. The foyer had to full of junk mail! > It’s hard to imagine someone from a utility, a tax collector, a neighbor not noticing somthing odd after just a few weeks. Maybe a year tops. this happened in pennsylvania. the man was dead for 3 years. the property sold for unpaid taxes, the purchaser was rather surprized to find the dead man near the front door with mail scattered on him. no one checked the house before the sale, not the state, county, or town. they used the mail to determine how long he had been there. the regular mail carrier did report a bad smell to her supervisor, it did not go any further. ---
**Author:** ![matt\_mcl](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ab992/32.png) [@matt\_mcl](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/matt_mcl)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 6:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/30 "2009-01-19T18:53:51Z")
A few years ago one of the alternaweeklies did a report on what becomes of the bodies of the unclaimed dead in Montreal. The rather sad answer: [they end up in Laval](http://www.montrealmirror.com/ARCHIVES/2003/091803/news1.html). ---
**Author:** ![Windwalker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/5e9695/32.png) [@Windwalker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Windwalker)\ **Post date:** [January 19, 2009, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873/31 "2009-01-19T20:40:53Z")
> [@Swallowed\_My\_Cellphone](#): > > The other one **Bijou** is referring to happened in Girona, Spain in 2007. A man bought a foreclosed home and found the mummified remains of a woman in her 50s sitting on the couch. She was estranged form her children who live in Madrid. Police wondered how the hell the bank would sell the property without inspecting it, but they didn’t do anything illegal. The woman had stopped making her payments in 2001. This is one of the saddest things I’ve read. 6 years? And she had kids? ☹ [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/when-someone-who-lives-alone-dies/481873.md?page=1)