Video Summary
What do I do after the death of a family member? The first and obvious is to make funeral arrangements for the decedent, and also provide the emotional support for the family members and yourself, as far as that’s concerned. As far as determining what needs to be done as far as the decedent’s assets are concerned, you need to gather all of his assets, or bank statements, brokerage account statements, stock statements, all of those, to try and understand what assets that he owned immediately prior to his death, including any life insurance policies.
You then need to determine whether or not he had a will and locate the original will if he did. Then if he did not have a will, to come up with the names and the addresses of all the relatives of the decedent, his children, his grandchildren any of the children had predeceased him. You then also need to gather together any outstanding bills that the decedent has, and once you have a death certificate and this information, call and set up an appointment with the attorney to determine if a probate proceeding will be necessary, and if so, what type of probate proceeding would be necessary to see about getting the bills paid, and also to see about distributing their remainder to the beneficiaries. Give me a call at 727-847-2288.