Someone has died
The practical half of the next three months: the funeral, the photographs, and the accounts nobody else can get into.
Read in the order the work arrives, not the order the manuals sit on the shelf. Each step below names the one chapter to open first, so you are not starting at the top of a manual at two in the morning.
The legal and financial estate. We do not publish on wills, probate or taxes, and we will not improvise them. Beyond the burial benefits covered in Funeral Planning, the county clerk and a probate lawyer are the right first calls.
The route
-
The first 48 hours
Funeral Planning
Who has the legal right to decide, what a funeral home must hand you in writing before you choose anything, and what you are never required to buy.
-
Weeks two to eight
Funeral Planning
How many certified copies of the death certificate you will actually need, who has to be notified and in what order, and which accounts close on a phone call.
-
Before the house is cleared
Digital Photo Care
The shoeboxes and the slide carousels leave in a dumpster if nobody names them first. Take stock before the house is emptied, then scan at your own pace.
Open atFind All Your Photos: Phones, Old Drives and Cloud Accounts
-
As the house empties
Downsizing Coming soon
Clearing a house you did not live in: what to keep, what an estate sale is really worth, and how to divide things among people who are grieving.
Open atWe will name the chapter here when the manual is published.
-
And then, for yourself
Digital Security
You have just spent a month locked out of someone’s accounts. This is the chapter for writing the list you wish they had left you.
Open atYour Security File, Legacy Contacts and Check-Up Schedule
Everything here is free, needs no account, and can be opened at any chapter. The other routes · all the manuals.