Forward mail to yourself or a trusted person
You should also not hesitate in ensuring that your loved one’s mail gets forwarded to you or another trusted person. Obviously creditors, the phone company, the magazine subscription service, and countless other entities who send out mail don’t know that the person at that address has passed. Soon enough, you’ll have to sort through their subscriptions, outstanding bills, and credit institutes in order to notify them of the death. Forwarding mail to yourself ensures you’re already getting a good idea of who you’ll need to notify once you’ve officially been named the estate executor and start undergoing the process of settling their estate.
Of course, the responsibilities of handling your loved one’s affairs don’t end here. But these nine tasks should be the first things you take care of, and they usually need to happen very quickly. Probate itself can often take a very long time—sometimes even six months or more. In order to ensure that this process isn’t unnecessarily delayed, taking action soon after the death of a loved one will ensure that things go more smoothly down the line. If you’re feeling overwhelmed or confused about what comes next, don’t worry—that’s what ClearEstate is here for.