Today marks the birthday of my father. If he were still with us, he would have been celebrating his 81st year of life on this planet. It was Sept. 28, 2005, and I was in the middle of teaching a sports conditioning class at the gym when I was called out of class for an important phone call. It was my sister telling me that our dad had suddenly passed away that morning. I thanked her, hung up the phone, and returned to my class and continued to lead them through a series of burpees, box jumps, fartleks and sumo-squats for the remaining half of the hour-long class. After class, I gathered my stuff, jumped in my car, and screamed out in an indignant, feral roar. How dare he die before pulling his life together and forming a relationship with his family?

My father and I were close, up until the age of 5, when he left. I didn’t see him again for another 16 years, and after that, it was very intermittent and complicated. When I did see or talk to him, he was almost always inebriated, but pleasant. Promising the world and delivering nothing but disappointment and excuses. Thus, my response to the news of his passing. It’s difficult to be sad about the loss of someone you barely know.

Unfortunately, since many of his bridges had been burned, the proverbial “estate” clean-up was left up to me and my two sisters, equally frustrated and certainly as reluctant. Since he did not have anything that could even remotely be identified as an organized file of important papers, we were left to our own devices to search among the rubble.

Fast forward to Feb. 11, 2023. I awoke early to a text message. It was from a good friend informing me that her ex-husband had just, unexpectedly, passed away. Having no other family, this left their 21-year-old son to handle all the details. Since my friend is originally from Korea, she has had no regional knowledge of how to handle the settling of an estate. She called me a couple of hours later: “Jen, what do we do now? The funeral home is calling and wanting us to sign over any life insurance policies in order to pay for any arrangements that we apparently are required to make.”

At this point, I was very grateful that I had gone through this process, not only with my own father, but with a number of clients who had found themselves in the same situation. It’s interesting what a Realtor learns through selling a house as part of the process of settling an estate.

“Let them know you will talk to them Monday,” I advised. “Your 21-year-old son is in no condition right now to make these immediate decisions. He needs a few hours to process and decide what is available, feasible and logical. I’ll send over a list of things that need to be done right away and we can take it from there.”

After having painfully navigated this process, I compiled a checklist in the effort to prevent other people from flying completely blind. At the risk of the blind leading the blind, here are a few highlights: 1) Get an official declaration of death. You will need a handful of copies of the official death certificate. 2) Look through the deceased’s papers. You are searching for any life insurance policies, wills or trust documents. 3) Secure the property. This should happen immediately. There are predators that search for opportunities to take advantage of these situations when people are most vulnerable and unaware. 4) Forward all the mail. This is how you will find out what creditors, bills, accounts and subscriptions need to be cancelled. 5) If there is a will, identify the executor. This will be the person handling the details of the estate. If there is no will, the probate court judge will name an administrator. 6) If the estate is worth more than around $50,000, it may be worth hiring a trust and estate attorney. 7) Make a list of the assets as well as the bills. 8) Contact the banks, creditors, Social Security Administration, life insurance policy, financial advisers, stockbrokers and credit card companies. It is also critical to cancel the driver’s license and delete social media accounts. While the aforementioned list is not all-inclusive, it is a start. The proverbial clean up can be arduous. Best to bring an industrial-sized broom.

Jen Fischer is an associate broker and Realtor. She can be reached at 801-645-2134 or jen@jen-fischer.com.

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