funeral

How to Liquidate a Loved One's Estate

Carrie Kirby — Fri, 20 Apr 2018 09:00:06 +0000

When someone you love dies, at first, you may only be able to think about the emotional things: How you will miss them, how different your life will be without them, and maybe, if they were suffering, a sense of gratitude that their pain has ended.

Unfortunately, most of us also have to deal with logistics when someone in our family departs this world. If you are named executor of the estate, the heirs have the right to expect you to turn over their inheritance in a timely manner. Part of settling an estate is dealing with the personal possessions of the deceased. Often this must be done before the house or condo can be sold, or the lease terminated, and the estate closed out. The more possessions the departed owned, the more difficult this task can be. Some triaging is in order.

Before death

If your loved one is elderly, it's a good idea to encourage and help them to dispose of clutter and organize their possessions as an ongoing project. Focus on how discarding piles of old newspapers could make their home safer, or on how those clothes from the 1940s might be appreciated by the high school theater department. A wonderful project to do with an elderly loved one is to organize old photos, because there may be people in them that you can't identify without their help. (See also: Why Holding Onto Too Much Stuff Is a Burden for Your Loved Ones)

While doing these projects, if it feels right, you can gently inquire about any items they might be saving for particular family members, which is especially helpful to know if the person hasn't created a detailed will. The process may be frustrating and time consuming — after all, they may have had this stuff since before you were born, and it can be understandably hard to part with such things. But the more you can do with the cooperation of the property's owner, the easier things will be after they're gone. You run less risk of accidentally disposing of important papers or family treasures.

Sometimes the decluttering process is prompted by a move. When my elderly cousin had to move into assisted living, my family and I gradually cleared out the house she had been living in for decades. While she wasn't able to help us on site, we were able to set aside possessions we thought she might want to keep, bring them to her new home, and have her make decisions. Many of the old photos and letters we found were great conversation starters during our visits, especially when her memory began to fail.

Immediately after death

If your loved one was living in their home up until the day they died, you may need to check on the home immediately after leaving the hospital, to make sure it's secure and safe. Of course, if your loved one had pets, they must be attended to and rehomed without delay.

Within the first week, you'll want to clear out the kitchen to prevent problems with pests, mold, and odor. Clean out the refrigerator and get the trash out of the house. Discard or give away any nonperishable pantry items.

If you have not already done so, you may also need to immediately look for items to be used in the funeral. If your loved one is not being cremated, you may need to retrieve a nice outfit for the body to be dressed in. It's common to display photos, awards, and other mementos at funeral services, as well. If you're writing the obituary, you may find useful information in the home, such as school yearbooks or scrapbooks. Any record of military service is important to gather, so that your loved one can receive the posthumous honors they are due.

After the funeral

A few years ago, my family lost an uncle who was the last of his generation. After the funeral lunch, we gathered in his home and experienced the strange feeling of being allowed to roam through his rooms uninvited. I suspect even my eldest aunts felt a bit like naughty children. We were all sad, but it was also a little bit … fun.

On your first visit to start sorting through the home of the deceased, take a deep breath and look around so you can remember how the home looked when they lived there. Remember that while the task you are undertaking will be difficult and sad, it may also be exciting, because you could uncover letters and other relics from the past that may help you come to know your loved one better than you ever did when they were alive.

Here are a few steps to make the task of clearing out their belongings less stressful.

1. Sort through it all

There are two ways to sort through the personal possessions in the home of the deceased. One way is to comb through everything yourself, which can be exhausting. The second way is to hire an estate sale company to sort through everything for you. Many reputable estate sale companies offer sorting and trash removal as part of their service. In fact, they advise that you throw nothing away, because you might inadvertently chuck something of value. I actually tossed an old automobile company shareholder brochure into the trash while sorting through my relative's home, only to have second thoughts and retrieve it. It ended up selling for $20. (See also: 12 Financial Moves to Make When a Loved One Dies)

In exchange for preparing and conducting the sale, the estate sale operator keeps a percentage of the proceeds, and may also charge fees. Such an arrangement could save you a lot of work. However, keep in mind that if you don't sort through the home yourself, you may miss items of sentimental value that you didn't know were there. The sale operator may promise to set aside any family photos and documents, but they won't know as well as you know what you would want to keep.

This happened to me. A few months after my cousin's estate sale was over, I was online researching her obituary. Imagine my shock when I found, online, images of her original baptismal certificate and her parents' wedding certificate, written in Slovak calligraphy. These documents had apparently been sold on eBay, but I couldn't find the original listing so I had no chance to contact the buyer or seller. The most charitable assumption I could make was that the estate sale company had inadvertently sold these items that obviously fell into the "sentimental value" category.

If you decide to do the sorting yourself, I have a few recommendations based on experience:

Bring a friend or family member along for help.
Drag trash and recycle bins through the home as you work.
Pack up boxes of papers to sort through in the comfort of your own home.
Don't throw away anything old before checking its value. You'd be surprised what people buy on eBay!

2. Make sure that heirs get a chance at keepsakes

Beyond any specific property named in the will, you probably want to make sure that everyone who was close to the deceased gets a memento to remember them by. This is tricky territory, because many decadeslong family fueds have started over granny's handmade quilts or even Uncle Joe's second-best TV trays. Some families may leave this task to the closest surviving relative.

But if there are a number of survivors of equal status, you might need a more formally mediated approach. After my great uncle passed, my family used an interesting method of distributing property of both sentimental and practical value: a family auction. All the heirs walked through the house and bid on the items there, with the moderation of an auctioneer. Every dollar they paid went into a pot, later divided equally among them. You can do such a private auction before an estate sale, or in place of one. Another system is to run an auction with points instead of cash, with each relative starting with the same number of points.

3. Sell what can be sold

If you decide to hire an estate sale company, interview and research the candidates carefully. The online review website Angie's List reports that Auction Services listings, which include listings for estate sales companies, make up one of its most complained-about categories. Thirty percent of those reviews score a D or F from customers.

Before a sale, you should remove anything from the house that the family intends to keep. Make it clear to the auction company what you're keeping, because they will base their prices on the amount they estimate they can make from the sale. If a sentimental item is too large for you to remove before the sale, make sure the sale company clearly marks it as not for sale.

Assuming you do want an estate sale, it's not a given you'll find an estate sale company that will agree to work with you. If the house has a lot of stuff but no high-value items, many estate sale companies will refuse to take on the job because they typically earn their money by keeping a percentage of the sale's proceeds.

In that case, you may be forced to run the estate sale yourself, list items in the local paper, or find a low-end operator to take the job on the cheap. Make sure to check the local regulations before advertising a garage sale.

4. Dispose of what can't be sold

Once you're down to items that no one in the family wants that also aren't worth enough to sell, your next step is to donate what you can to charity. Typical items in this category are: used clothing that doesn't qualify as vintage, worn furniture, and everyday dishes. The most expeditious way to get this stuff out of the house is to request and schedule a pickup with a local charity. Goodwill, Salvation Army, and Habitat for Humanity are three that commonly make pickups; your area may have these or others. If you don't find a charity that will pick up your items, you could pay movers to deliver the stuff to the nearest resale shop, or deliver it yourself.

Try to avoid dumping stuff on the curb — some cities will fine you for this. If you can't get a charity to take the items, you could list them on Freecycle or advertise them on Craigslist as available for free. Also, some newspapers don't charge to print ads for free items.

5. Pay for junk removal if you must

If you're able to do the work of getting the junk out of the house, check with your local government offices to see if you can get a large trash receptacle parked at the curb or schedule a large item pickup for free or at a low cost. You can also check with your local home improvement store; some now sell large heavy duty bags or bins that you can fill with thousands of pounds of junk and call them to pick up. The bag option usually costs only about $150-$200, compared to about $300-$850 to rent a trailer-sized trash receptacle for a week and have it hauled away full. Cost really depends on your area and the amount of stuff you're tossing.

The more expensive option is to pay a full-service junk removal company that will come into the home and remove everything you ask them to. These companies may charge $500 per truckload. On the upside, the work for you is minimal.

Once you have removed, given away, sold, donated, or thrown away every last item in your loved one's home, you're ready to bring in a housecleaner for a thorough cleaning, and list the home for sale.

This is a good time to devote some attention to the mementos that you decided to keep in your own home. Display knickknacks in a case, hang a framed photo on the wall, or get that ring resized so that you can see these precious things and be reminded of your departed loved one often.

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This article is from Carrie Kirby of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Six Great Tech Tools for Planning Your Own Death

Paul Michael — Thu, 31 May 2012 10:24:08 +0000

There’s that word — death.

It’s not something we like to see, talk about, or even acknowledge (did it send a shudder down your spine?). In fact, there are people out there who won’t create a will, discuss funeral arrangements, or even talk about events after their death for fear of tempting “fate.”

Well, unless you really do believe that planning ahead is going to anger the gods of destiny and providence (and if you do, you probably didn't even get past the headline anyway), then it makes complete sense to use today’s technology to help you prepare for the inevitable.

There are several apps and online tools that can help you plan ahead for the time when you will shuffle off this mortal coil. And if you do it right, you can leave your friends and loved ones with security and pleasant memories, rather than heartache and debt. (See also: Would You Consider a DIY Funeral?)

1. MyWill

Let’s start with the most fundamental estate-planning document that you should have prepared — your will. Although it’s not a pleasant process, you really do need to have this in place, especially if you have children. The MyWill app makes it easy, with options to help you:

Leave your property to the people and organizations you choose
Name someone to care for your minor children
Name someone to manage property you leave to minor children
Name the executor of your estate
Revoke any previous wills and/or codicils

There are many other features, and you can also update your will as many times as you wish. This free app is currently only available for the iPhone, but it’s very handy, and you can’t beat the price.

2. Funeral Advice

Planning your own funeral may seem a touch macabre, but I for one would rather plan mine than have a grieving relative do it. A free app called Funeral Advice lets you do just that, with advice (including video tutorials) that can guide you to the right funeral for your needs. What’s a green burial? What kind of casket should you get? What can you expect to pay? Other features packaged in the app include:

Steps to take after losing a loved one
Funeral information
Words of sympathy
A casket and cremation urn shop

It may be helpful to go through this with your partner, other family members, or friends, so that they know your wishes as well. The app is available for iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch. You can also check out another funeral-planning app, Funeral Notebook.

3. Death Meter

Nice morbid name, right? Well, although Death Meter is intended more as something to start some casual conversation, it can also give you a wake-up call and a good idea of how long you may have left to live. Taking into account such factors as daily activity, diet, pollution, and even teeth flossing, it gives you a rough idea of when you can expect to pop your clogs. Obviously, it’s not 100% accurate, but it could raise a few red flags for you and your own health.

Other death-countdown tools include Death Forecast and The Death Clock.

4. If I Die

Of all the tools available right now for planning your own death, this one is probably the most controversial. Facebook app If I Die hit the headlines because many people believe it’s in very poor taste. Why? Well, the basic idea is that you can record a message that will be played to your friends and loved ones if you should die unexpectedly. The task of sharing this message goes to two or three trusted friends on Facebook. Once activated, the app sends out the message. You can send an inside joke or something way more serious. But if this kind of thing doesn't give you the creeps, the app could be something that helps people accept your passing, especially if it’s very sudden.

5. iLivingWill

A living will is not a substitute for a last will, and they have very different purposes. A last will is there to see that your property is distributed according to your wishes and your last wishes are carried out. It also specifies guardianship for minors. A living will is put in place to outline critical healthcare decisions in advance, so if you are incapacitated, everyone knows what you wanted. Usually, people refer to your living will for such information as whether you want to remain on life support and who you want to make health decisions for you if you are incapable of doing so. The 99 cent iLivingWill iPad app lets you create, store, and distribute a living will for yourself, family, and even friends.

The app will:

Sensitively answer all the important questions, like having your own family doctor at your side
Tell your health care providers exactly what kind of care you expect
Help protect those you love from uncertainty and regret
Prepare a living will summary document, with the option to save and share it

The app comes with voice-over support, and a portion of the profits goes to organizations that support end-of-life care and green burial.

6. AssetLock

There are several cloud-based storage systems out there right now, and many are free (or very cheap). AssetLock, however, has put a different spin on it. It’s a website that acts as a virtual safe deposit box, storing your vital records and information and then automatically allowing your chosen family and friends to access that information once you pass away. Possible items you can store in this vault include:

Digital copies of important documents for reference
Final messages for family and friends
Funeral arrangements, a eulogy, an obituary, and notifications
Instructions to help settle your estate, to-do's, and when to pay bills
Locations of important documents such as wills, trusts, and insurance policies
Where your safe deposit box, keys, etc. are located
Secret information, like passwords, hidden accounts, and lock combinations

The pricing is very reasonable at $9.95 a year or just $235 for life. You can also sign up for a free trial.

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

Times Are Tough; Would You Consider A DIY Funeral?

Paul Michael — Sat, 20 Jun 2009 06:12:11 +0000

It's never pleasant to think about death and funerals, but if there is one certainty in life, it's that we're all going to bite the dust at some point. And just like most things in life, death is an expensive business. But did you know that there are options to the usual funeral...you really can Do It Yourself, if you have the stomach for it.

The costs associated with the average funeral vary, with some costing as much as $15-$20,000. But it seems an average most professionals agree on is around $8000. That's not exactly chump change. It breaks down like this:

Professional and administrative services (embalming, funeral home staff during the visitation, and so on) ... $1,650

Facilities and equipment (preparation room, visitation room, reception room, chapel) ... $850

Transportation (transfer from the place of death, funeral limousine, and cars for the family) ... $450

Merchandise (casket, vault, prayer cards, temporary grave marker) ... $2,515

Cash disbursements (flowers, cemetery plot, obituary, death certificates, honorariums, headstone) ... $1,828

Total (not including taxes) ... $7,293

Even if you get the cheapest casket, forget the flowers and buy a fiberglass headstone, you're still looking at $5000. But there are alternatives. One extreme I read about in England, my home country, was about a guy who requested to be put on his own compost heap when he died. And somehow, his wife managed to get it done. Here in the US I can imagine it would be a lot tougher to go that far. But the DIY funeral is definitely an alternative.

An article I found interesting from Associated Content listed the following steps for your DIY funeral:

1. A medical examiner or funeral must sign the death certificate. Also if the death did not take place in the hospital, a medical examiner or coroner will have to verify death and the cause.

2. Use dry ice instead of embalming. Embalming isn't a requirement nowadays although the quick deterioration of a body will warrant a quick burial. You can help preserve the body with dry ice.

3. Make a coffin or buy one from a casket store that will sell to consumers.

4. You can use the funeral home for a few services such as help with the death certificate.

5. You will need to secure a burial permit. If you are burying on family land or anywhere other than a cemetery you will have to assure that the corpse will not spread any contagious or communicable diseases.

To some, the idea of caring for the dead, especially a close friend or relative, is a ghastly and unthinkable idea. But in other cultures, it's not only acceptable...it's the norm. I recently saw a documentary on India which showed people burning their loved ones on the banks of the Ganges and throwing their charred remians into the river. In other cultures, eating the flesh of the cooked dead body is a ritual. By comparison, popping your great uncle into a home-made coffin doesn't seem quite so bad.

There is plenty more to learn at funerals.org, and it gives you quite a lot more to thin about. So, one question to leave you with...would you do a DIY funeral? Or is it just too absurd to even consider?

This article is from Paul Michael of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread:

There are Cheaper Ways to Return to a Greener Earth

Linsey Knerl — Wed, 14 May 2008 03:46:32 +0000

The web is full of ways to live green, but have you ever thought about being Earth-friendly in your death? While it’s not always pleasant to think about, maybe we should. If you want to be sure that you have a full and ecologically responsible life, maybe “greener” burial products are for you.

The Green Burial Council, founded in 2005, has a unique perspective on death and burial services. In an attempt to reduce the “waste” that is caused by traditional American practices, it has created a host of sustainable deathcare options. Yes, I said “deathcare.” Whether you are looking to be buried or cremated, there are better choices, and many of them are far cheaper than the norm.

Before my look at the Green Burial Council, I was unaware of the dangers that come with the continuation of our current burial practices, which include:

Embalming – This traditional process uses fluids containing formaldehyde, which has the potential to seep into groundwater. While the EPA acknowledges its role as a possible carcinogen, the World Health Organization goes a step further, labeling it as dangerous.

Vaults – These large concrete “tombs” make up 1.6 million tons of reinforced concrete, which end up below ground. They are not required by law, but are often a basic requirement by traditional home funerals and burials.

Cremation – While it leaves far less behind to deal with, cremation has started to cause concern with the amount of fossil fuels required to perform the procedure.

As an increasing number of Baby Boomers make plans for their departure, this has never been a more relevant time for change. With the Council working to standardized requirements to become a “Conservation,” “Natural,” or “Hybrid” Burial Ground, there may be hope in our lifetime for more responsible practices.

It may take some adjusting to accept the Best Practices of the GBC, which include home funerals, dry ice preservation for open viewings, and bio-degradable paper shrouds. But if the cost of these uniquely old-fashioned methods is any less than what funeral homes currently require, I think people will become more open to it. For a complete list of green funeral providers, cemeteries, and products near you, see the Council’s approved list.

Want to see the most fabulously comprehensive piece on green funerals? This article at TreeHugger has everything you need to know about green funerals, how to make your wishes known, and where to begin the journey for planning out the end of your journey.

This article is from Linsey Knerl of Wise Bread, an award-winning personal finance and credit card comparison website. Read more great articles from Wise Bread: