What to do when someone dies

Only a handful of things genuinely need to happen this week. Everything else can wait, whatever the paperwork piling up suggests.

• Mark done: Get a legal pronouncement of death

  Get a legal pronouncement of death

  In a hospital, nursing home or hospice facility, the staff there handle this. At home it depends. If the person was on hospice, call the hospice 24-hour line first rather than 911. In most states a hospice nurse can come out and pronounce the death, though some states require a doctor. If they were not on hospice, call 911. One thing worth knowing before you do: if there is a do-not-resuscitate order or a POLST form, have the actual document to hand when paramedics arrive, because without seeing it they will generally begin CPR. If the death was unexpected or the cause is unclear, a medical examiner or coroner will be involved and the body should not be moved until they release it.

• Mark done: Choose a funeral home and compare prices

  Choose a funeral home and compare prices

  You do not have to use the first funeral home suggested, and prices vary far more than people expect. The FTC's Funeral Rule says a funeral provider must give you accurate prices over the phone if you ask, and you do not have to give your name or number first. It does not have to mail you a price list or post prices online. The full written price list is what they hand you when you inquire in person. The rule covers businesses selling both funeral goods and services, so standalone cemeteries, crematories and casket sellers sit outside it and have to be priced separately.

• Mark done: Tell family, close friends and their employer

  Tell family, close friends and their employer

  Delegate this. One call each to a handful of people who each agree to tell others is how families actually get through it. The employer matters early: final wages, accrued leave and any life insurance through work all start with that call.

• Mark done: Secure the home, vehicles and pets

  Secure the home, vehicles and pets

  Lock the house, pick up the mail, move valuables out of sight, and make sure pets have somewhere to go. An obviously empty home after a published obituary attracts burglary. It is ugly, and it is common.

• Mark done: Order about ten certified death certificates

  Order about ten certified death certificates

  Order them all at once, usually through the funeral home when the certificate is filed. It costs less per copy than coming back later, and you can still order more from the state or county vital records office at any time. Some places keep the copy for good, including life insurers and the probate court. Most banks will look at the certified copy, take a photocopy and hand yours back. Social Security is normally notified by the funeral director, so you do not need to send them one.

• Mark done: Don't pay debts or make big decisions yet

  Don't pay debts or make big decisions yet

  Do not pay the deceased person's debts from your own money, do not promise a debt collector that you will, and do not sell or give away their things until you have authority to act for the estate. Debts are the estate's to pay, not yours, apart from a few specific exceptions covered later in this list. A collector is allowed to discuss payment from the estate, but is not allowed to say or imply that you personally owe the money when you do not.

The paperwork phase. Most of it is phone calls, and most of the calls need a certified death certificate at hand.

• Mark done: Find the will, if there is one

  Find the will, if there is one

  Check the desk, the safe, the safe-deposit box, and with any attorney they ever used. Some states require the original will to be filed with the court within a set time even when no probate case is opened, so check your state's rule before setting it aside.

• Mark done: Make sure Social Security has been told

  Make sure Social Security has been told

  Give the funeral director the deceased person's Social Security number. That is what lets them report the death. Most funeral homes do report it, but it does not happen on its own and it does not happen at all if no funeral director is involved, which is common with a direct cremation. Call Social Security on 1-800-772-1213 to confirm the death is on record. A death cannot be reported online.

• Mark done: Work out which Social Security payments to return

  Work out which Social Security payments to return

  Retirement, survivor and disability benefits are paid a month behind, so the money arriving in one month covers the month before it. Nothing is paid for the month a person dies, so the payment covering that month goes back. If someone died in July, the payment that arrived in August covers July and must be returned, while the payment that arrived in July covers June and is kept. Once you tell the bank about the death it will send back every payment that arrives from then on, including one that was genuinely owed. That is standard and it is not a mistake on your part. If a payment that was due gets pulled back, claim it from Social Security as an underpayment rather than writing it off.

• Mark done: Claim the death payment and survivor benefits

  Claim the death payment and survivor benefits

  The one-time payment is $255. It goes first to a surviving spouse who was living in the same household when the person died, and if there is none, to a spouse entitled to survivor benefits on that record, or to eligible children. Apply within two years. Monthly survivor benefits are the larger money: a widow or widower can qualify at 60, or at 50 with a disability, generally where the marriage lasted at least nine months, and that requirement is waived for an accidental death and in several other situations. Children qualify under 18, or under 19 if still in school full time, and an adult child of any age whose disability began before 22. Apply as soon as you can, because benefits can usually be backdated only about six months.

• Mark done: Notify banks and card issuers

  Notify banks and card issuers

  A card in the deceased person's name alone should stop being used the moment they die, including by anyone who was an authorized user, because the permission to use it ended with them. Being only an authorized user does not usually make you liable for the balance that was already there, though a joint account holder is. Joint accounts with right of survivorship keep working for the surviving owner. If the balances are large, note that the FDIC insures the accounts as though the person were still alive for six months after the death, but that cushion ends for any account the moment it is retitled, so take advice before restructuring anything over $250,000.

• Mark done: File life insurance claims

  File life insurance claims

  Life insurance with a living named beneficiary is normally paid straight to that person, outside probate and usually beyond the reach of the deceased person's creditors, so claim it now rather than waiting for anything else. It works differently if the estate was named as beneficiary, or if the named beneficiary died first and no contingent was named, because then it falls back into the estate. You will need a certified death certificate and the policy number, and most insurers pay within a few weeks.

• Mark done: Write to all three credit bureaus

  Write to all three credit bureaus

  Send a certified copy of the death certificate to Equifax, Experian and TransUnion separately, asking each to place a deceased notice on the file. Two of them say that telling one updates the others, but no law requires that, so write to all three. Social Security does not tell them either. Include the person's full legal name, Social Security number, date of birth and last address. If you held accounts jointly, tell each creditor that only one account holder has died. Surviving spouses are sometimes marked deceased by mistake, which blocks their own credit, and that has to be disputed with the bureau in writing.

• Mark done: Deal with the mail

  Deal with the mail

  Forwarding a deceased person's mail is harder than forwarding your own. It cannot be done online, and a death certificate on its own is not enough: USPS requires you to go to the Post Office in person with photo ID and court papers appointing you executor or administrator. If you are settling a small estate by affidavit you will not have those papers, so the practical route is to collect the mail from the address and contact senders directly. Either way, keep reading it. The mail is how you find the accounts, debts and subscriptions nobody knew about.

• Mark done: Cancel subscriptions and services they no longer need

  Cancel subscriptions and services they no longer need

  Phone plans, streaming, memberships, deliveries. Keep the utilities and the homeowner's insurance running on any property until it is transferred or sold.

• Mark done: Tell the property insurer the house is empty

  Tell the property insurer the house is empty

  Paying the premium is not the same as being covered. Once a house counts as vacant under the policy wording, standard homeowner's cover drops claims for things like vandalism and broken glass, and some policies cut further than that. How many days it takes to count as vacant varies by policy and by state, so call the insurer, tell them the position and ask what they need. Most policies still treat the executor and a household member who lived there as insured after a death, but only for the property covered at the time, and that is not permanent.

• Mark done: Check veterans' and pension benefits

  Check veterans' and pension benefits

  If the person was a veteran, check what they actually qualify for before signing a funeral contract, because not every veteran qualifies for the money. A grave in a VA national cemetery, a government headstone and a burial flag are available at no cost to those who are eligible. The burial allowance is a reimbursement you claim yourself on VA Form 21P-530EZ, not a discount the funeral home applies. Where the death was not service connected there is a two-year deadline from the burial for that allowance, so do not leave it for later. Former employers' pension plans may also owe survivor payments: private-sector plans generally have to provide a survivor annuity for a spouse, though a plan can require that the marriage lasted a year, and IRAs follow the beneficiary form instead.

Now the actual legal work, which for most modest estates is far less than people fear. Start by finding out which track you are on.

• Mark done: List what they owned, and how each thing is titled

  List what they owned, and how each thing is titled

  Go asset by asset: accounts, vehicles, property, final wages, belongings. For each one, note how it was titled. Jointly-held property, anything with a named beneficiary, and anything in a trust passes automatically and never enters probate. What is left, owned in their name alone, is the probate estate, and it is usually far smaller than the headline number.

  What counts toward the limit
• Mark done: Check whether you can skip probate entirely

  Check whether you can skip probate entirely

  Every state lets the next of kin collect a modest estate with a sworn affidavit instead of a probate case. The limits run from about $15,000 to $400,000 depending on the state, so do not assume you are over. This is a two-minute check and it determines everything that follows.

  Run the free eligibility check
• Mark done: If the estate is over the limit, ask about summary administration

  If the estate is over the limit, ask about summary administration

  Before hiring anyone for full probate, ask the probate court clerk whether the estate qualifies for a simplified or summary administration, which is the middle option most families never hear about. Clerks cannot give legal advice, but they can tell you which procedures exist.

  Affidavit vs. probate
• Mark done: Pay debts in your state's order, before anyone inherits

  Pay debts in your state's order, before anyone inherits

  Estate debts are paid from estate money in an order your state sets, and that order genuinely differs between states. Texas pays the funeral and last-illness costs first. Florida and Michigan pay the costs of administration first. Many states also set aside an allowance and exempt property for the surviving spouse and children ahead of ordinary creditors, and that money is the family's to keep rather than something to hand to a hospital. Find your state's order before paying anyone, because paying the wrong creditor first is the mistake that costs families money they were entitled to.

• Mark done: Understand where you can become personally liable

  Understand where you can become personally liable

  In most cases you are not responsible for a deceased parent's or spouse's debts. You can become responsible if you co-signed, if you held the account jointly, or if you hand out estate money before the debts that outrank it are paid, in which case you can be made to repay it out of your own pocket up to the value of what you handed out. One more situation is worth checking: in the nine community property states, a surviving spouse can be responsible for debts incurred during the marriage. If the debts might exceed the assets, stop and speak to a probate attorney rather than signing anything.

• Mark done: Transfer or sell the vehicle

  Transfer or sell the vehicle

  Most states have a separate DMV route for transferring a vehicle without probate. Sometimes its limit is higher than the general small estate limit and sometimes lower, so check rather than assuming. New York, for example, caps its vehicle affidavit at $25,000. Call the insurer before anyone drives it, because a policy in a deceased person's name may not respond to a claim.

  Car title transfer guide
• Mark done: File the final tax return

  File the final tax return

  A final federal income tax return covering the year of death is due when it would have been if they had lived, which for most people is 15 April of the following year. A surviving spouse can usually still file jointly with the person who died for that year, unless they remarried before the year ended, in which case they file jointly with the new spouse instead. Federal estate tax almost never applies: for a death in 2026 the exclusion is $15,000,000. Several states run their own estate or inheritance tax at far lower thresholds, so check your state separately.

• Mark done: Collect the assets and close the accounts

  Collect the assets and close the accounts

  With the affidavit or court papers in hand, work down your inventory: banks, the employer for final wages, the DMV. Take a certified death certificate and photo ID to each. Keep a simple ledger of everything collected and everything paid out. If anyone ever questions the settlement, that ledger is your protection.

• Mark done: Distribute what remains, and keep the records

  Distribute what remains, and keep the records

  Once the debts are settled, distribute to the heirs under the will if there is one, and otherwise by your state's intestacy rules. Have each person acknowledge receipt in writing. Then keep the whole file, including the affidavit, the ledger and the receipts, for several years. You will most likely never need it, and if you do you will be very glad it exists.