For survivors of retirees living in Dumaguete, there are many issues you need to navigate through during an already-extremely difficult time.
Having to make funeral plans, notifying friends and family, and having to deal with the grieving process can be overwhelming.
To reduce the stress of dealing with settling the deceased’s affairs, there are also several critical actions that need to be taken:
Request death certificates. Typically, the funeral home provides death certificates for a fee. I would recommend requesting for 10 to 12 copies.
Change the decedent’s mailing address. If your and the decedent’s address is not the same, you would want the decedent’s mail to get to you. To do this, you need to change the decedent’s address into yours. Also, you need to locate and keep in a safe place the decedent’s important papers.
Determine if there is a probate estate. Hopefully, the decedent’s estate was held in a trust, jointly or as non-probate assets. Thus, there would be no assets to be probated.
Otherwise, assets in the decedent’s name will have to be probated. If the decedent had a will, it probably named an executor, the person who is in charge of carrying out the final wishes, and distributing the properties of the decedent.
If the person died without a will (also known as “intestacy”), Philippine law, or the law of the jurisdiction where the decedent’s assets are located, will provide a list of those who could serve in this capacity, and to whom the decedent’s assets will be distributed.
Notify financial institutions. You should contact Social Security, any insurance company where the decedent had a policy, credit card companies, banks and investment companies where the decedent had an account to advise them of the death.
It is critical to understand that an account solely in the decedent’s name will most likely be frozen once the company has been notified of the death of the decedent. (Note, this is not the case where the account is held by a trust).
Once the accounts are transferred to the probate estate, the funds will be available again. You also need to contact the decedent’s retirement account providers to determine who the beneficiary of the account death proceeds is.
It is a good idea to notify mortgage companies and other loan providers, including credit card companies that the person has died to prevent identity theft.
Where assets are held in a trust, probate is avoided, and the process of settling the decedent’s estate is made a lot easier.
Also, the problem of frozen accounts can be avoided along with many of the problems associated with probating an estate when assets are held in several jurisdictions such as the Philippines, the U.S. and elsewhere in the world. Holding one’s assets in a trust can make life a lot easier for the decedent’s family.
The bottom line, if we put our estate in order, life is made much easier for our loved ones after our death. Quick actions after our death can reduce the stress of our survivors having to settle our estate, and even prevent the loss of assets.
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Author’s email: [email protected]
