Checklist After the Death of a Parent

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Losing a parent is one of life’s most challenging experiences. Amidst the grief and heartache, you may find yourself responsible for handling their affairs—from funeral planning to estate management and notifying family and friends.

If this is your first time navigating these responsibilities, you might feel unsure about what steps to take. While the exact process can vary depending on individual circumstances, this checklist will help you manage these tasks with confidence and care.

First Steps After a Parent Passes Away

Handling the aftermath of a parent’s death involves a variety of tasks, from simple ones like forwarding mail to more complex matters like asset management. Remember, you don’t have to do everything at once or alone. Some actions are immediate, while others can be addressed in the days and weeks that follow. If possible, delegate tasks to family and friends to help alleviate stress and expedite the process.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 1. Obtain a Death Certificate

To obtain a death certificate—a crucial document you’ll need to wrap up your loved one’s affairs—you’ll first need an official death pronouncement. This step must happen in order to do anything else.

Died In Hospital or Nursing Home: If they die in a hospital or nursing home, the staff will take care of this.
Died at Home: A medical professional must make the declaration. The best thing to do is to call 911, and they’ll guide you from there.
Died in Hospice: Their nurse can declare them dead.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 2. Obtain After-Death Plans

Check if your parents had any pre-arranged plans, such as a prepaid burial plot or cremation. Alternatively, they may have included a letter of instruction with their paperwork, even if they didn’t make an actual arrangement.

During this period if you do find their estate planning paperwork (trust or will), you should make sure it gets to the listed successor trustee or executor if it is not you to be dealt with later, which we discuss below. If they haven’t left any formal instructions, you might need to talk to their family and friends to find out if they’d ever had conversations regarding their wishes and proceed from there.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 3. Transfer the Body

Depending on your parent’s wishes, you may need to organize the transfer of their body to a funeral home, crematorium, or medical institution. Some people have very specific wishes while others leave it to the discretion of their trusted family or friends.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 4. Plan for Care

If your parent was responsible for their partner, relative or pets, ensure guardianship plans are in place. You may need to arrange temporary care while permanent arrangements are made.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 5. Notify Family and Friends

Informing others about your parent’s passing can be emotionally challenging. Consider creating a list of people to contact and categorize them as follows:

Immediate Family: Notify in person or over the phone.
Close Friends and Extended Family: Use phone calls or text messages.
Others: A group email or social media post may be appropriate.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 6. Inform Their Employer

Contact your parent’s employer, if applicable, to inform them of their passing. Inquire about any outstanding paychecks and life insurance benefits, and arrange to collect personal belongings.

Tasks Within the First Few Days

Once immediate tasks are managed, the focus shifts to organizing a memorial service, funeral, or celebration of life, along with other administrative duties.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 7. Locate End-of-Life Documents

Gather any end-of-life planning documents, including the will, trust, and account details. These will be crucial as you work through the estate settlement process.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 8. Plan a Memorial Service

Your parents may have talked about or written down their wishes for what to do after they die. If not, it’s time to consult with the rest of the family and make decisions. Questions to ask may include:

Obituary

Are we going to place an obituary in the local paper or online?
If so, who’ll write it? Here is an outline of what to include with some examples to get you started.

Burial vs. cremation

If the deceased was religious, consider their beliefs, traditions, and rituals to follow.
If we do a burial, where will it be? What type of burial do we want (there are several types)? Should we go with a natural burial or do we want a traditional headstone, and if so, what should we inscribe on it?
If we do cremation, how do we get the ashes after cremation, and what should we do with them? Should we spread them or make a keepsake with them?

Service

Will we have a memorial service, funeral, or a celebration of life? Not sure of the difference? This article explains the differences between these services. Again, If the deceased was religious, you’ll want to incorporate their religious beliefs into the service. This article offers guidance on hosting a memorial service at home
Do we want to host a visitation? This article explains the difference between a visitation and a funeral if you are unsure.
Should we include a funeral processional in the service?
What venues will we use? Do we want to host this service at their place of worship, a funeral home, or someplace else, like someone’s home?
If we’re having an ash-spreading ceremony, where do we want to spread their ashes? This article offers helpful information on spreading ashes outdoors. And don’t forget to check local rules and regulations before spreading ashes outdoors, in the water, or at a public location.
Who’ll plan the specifics of the event, such as ordering food, inviting guests, and enlisting speakers to give eulogies? If you’re hosting a funeral at a funeral home, you’ll want to consider using a funeral director to help with planning the service.
What type of music should we include? What readings meant a lot to the deceased? Don’t forget to include any religious readings in the service.
Who’s going to pay for it? If the deceased is a veteran, they might be eligible to get some of their burial expenses covered or they might receive a discount.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 9. Secure Property and Valuables

Ensure your parent’s residence and vehicle are secure. Safeguard any valuables by placing them in a safe or taking them home with you.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 10. Forward Mail and Email

Go to the post office or usps.com to have your parent’s mail forwarded to you or another trusted party. This will keep their mailbox from overflowing and signaling that the house is empty. Not only that, but looking through their mail can help you find out what banks they have accounts with, which credit cards they used and might have a balance on, or any outstanding loans.

Email is another good way to find out what bills they were paying. It’s also a good idea to monitor their account for any type of important information. Unfortunately, if your loved one didn’t leave you their username and password, you may have trouble accessing their online account. Most email providers will not grant access to an account even upon death without a court order. Even with a court order, they may still not comply due to privacy laws. The best thing to do is reach out to the email service provider at the time of death to find out about the current rules.

That being said, you may be able to find your parent’s password via a password manager, written down near their computer, in a notes app on their phone, or by an educated guess.

Tasks Within a Few Weeks

Once your parents has been laid to rest, the process of settling their estate begins. It’s essential to move at a pace comfortable for you while also taking care of your well-being. By following this checklist and seeking support from loved ones, you can ensure that your parent’s affairs are handled with the respect and attention they deserve.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 11. Order Death Certificates

Order at least ten certified copies of your parent’s death certificate. You’ll need them to close accounts, transfer ownership of accounts or property, or whenever proof of death is needed. You can order death certificates from the vital statistics office in the state where your parent died.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 12. Map Out Assets

Make a list of their assets and determine what will happen to each of these. Will you sell the home and the cars or is someone inheriting these assets? If there is a will, it may specify who is inheriting items or if they should all be sold and the money given to the beneficiary.

Determine what paperwork needs to be completed to transfer ownership or sell these items. If there’s no will, this can get complicated and may require input from family or other loved ones. Some families hire a mediator to help work through difficult conversations like these, if that is an option for you.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent:13. Settle the Estate

The process of settling a parent’s estate depends on the size of the estate and whether or not there is a will and other end-of-life paperwork. While you may not need to do all the things on this list, here are some common tasks involved with settling an estate:

Find the will and notify the executor, if that’s not you.
Find and inventory all assets, including financial accounts and tangible items like jewelry or antiques.
Take the will to your local probate office. If the deceased had a trust, you might be able to avoid probate court, which will make the process faster. Probate ensures that debts are paid and the remaining assets are transferred to the beneficiaries.
Enlist a trusts and estates attorney. This is optional but can make the process easier and relieve some of the burden.
Hire a CPA to handle their final tax return and advise you on any inheritance tax issues.
If they had a financial advisor, arrange to have accounts transferred to the beneficiary.

If your parent doesn’t have a will, the probate court will use intestate succession to determine who will receive the assets based on local laws. These laws vary from state to state but typically give preference to the surviving spouse or partner, followed by children, then parents, siblings, and extended family members.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 14. Pay Bills

Make a list of bills that still need to be paid in the short term, such as the mortgage, taxes, credit cards, car payments, or any utilities, while you settle the estate. Some bills will be handled by the estate (both assets and debts can be a part of the estate process). For example, if you sell the home or someone inherits it through a will, you would no longer be responsible for the payments. If there is credit card debit, the estate will pay it, and if there is not enough money to cover it, this debit will not be passed on to someone else.

Some utilities and insurance will need to be paid until you transfer the home into the new owner’s name or sell it so you’ll want to make sure to keep current on those. Set up auto-pay or calendar reminders for payment due dates and to remind you to cancel the accounts when they are no longer needed.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 15. Identify Insurance Policies

Gather a list of all insurance policies of your deceased parent. Cancel their health policies, but make sure not to cancel the home or car insurance until those have been sold or transferred to a new owner. Notify the insurance agent of the death and let them know what the plans are for the home or vehicles (will it be sold or is someone inheriting it). If they have insurance for less common things, like a boat, make sure to cancel those when the items are sold or taken over by the new owner.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 16. Close Credit Cards

Close all credit card accounts and destroy the physical cards. If there is a second user on the accounts, keep them open but have the deceased’s name removed from the account and destroy cards with their name on them.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 17. Cancel Services

Taking the time to cancel services will ensure the companies don’t try to collect on accumulated charges later. In the case where services were auto-charged to a credit or debit card, canceling services prevents charges for things no one is using, and that money can go to the beneficiaries instead (this is also why you should cancel credit cards right away).

Services to cancel could include:

Cable TV
Internet provider
Streaming services
Gym memberships
Memberships to professional or social organizations
Mobile phone carrier

Looking through their mail (physical or email) for bills or payments on their credit or bank statements can help you identify what they regularly pay.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent:18. Deactivate Accounts

If you don’t have the password to your parent’s social media accounts, you won’t be able to gain access due to privacy laws. However, some social media companies let you request to “memorialize” an account, keeping it open with a “remembering” label on it so people can still view photos and share memorial tributes to the page. They will also let you delete an account when you submit the proper information.

You may be able to get an email provider to deactivate an account for you, but most email accounts simply get suspended after a certain period of inactivity. Check the rules with the service provider your parent one used.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 19. Notify Institutions

Once you have the death certificate, you’ll need to start letting various organizations know about the death of your parent. This may include:

How do I notify Social Security of a death? The Social Security Administration website gives you information if they were receiving social security or if you need to apply for survivor benefits.
If they were a veteran who received benefits, you’ll need to inform Veterans Affairs.
Banks, financial advisors, and any financial institutions. They will need to see proof of death before releasing funds to the beneficiary.
Life insurance companies. If they had a life insurance policy through work or on their own, you’ll need to notify the company of the death to make a claim. You’ll also need proof of death to cancel these policies.
Credit agencies. Send the death certificate to one of the major credit bureaus. You only need to notify one, and they will share the information with the others.
Department of Motor Vehicles. Removing your parent from the motor vehicle database helps prevent identity theft and prevents them from receiving license renewal requests and bills.
Voter registration office. Like above, removing their name from the voter registration database helps prevent fraud.

Checklist After the Death of a Parent: 20. Send Thank Yous

At some point, you’ll want to send thank you notes to those who helped you during this challenging time. Perhaps they sent flowers to the funeral, donated in your loved one’s name, delivered meals so you didn’t have to worry about cooking, or were there with a sympathetic ear. Writing thank you notes is more than good etiquette—it’ll help remind you that you have a network of people who love and support you.

a family is standing at a tree grieving. This is the last part of their checklist after the death of a parent

Allow Yourself To Grieve

There are many steps to take when a parent dies, and this time-consuming process may be so distracting that you don’t feel like you have time to grieve. If the stress of managing everything while you are grieving is weighing on you, you may want to consider grief counseling to help you work through your complicated emotions and allow yourself time and space to process.

Knowing what to do when a parent dies may seem overwhelming, but educating yourself ahead of time will remove some of the stress. Also, being patient with yourself and completing the process one task at a time will make it easier. We’re here to help—download our checklist today and give yourself peace of mind that everything will be handled properly.