Clearing a Loved One’s Estate

Clearing an estate after losing a loved one can add unnecessary complications to an already stressful time, and we’re here to help reduce some of that stress. This month we’re going to tackle the process of managing an estate, as well as the steps that can help make it easier. There’s a lot to know and learn, and we hope this will be an easy guide to reference if you need to go through the process.

Getting Started

Before you do anything else, getting organized is so important. Most people will have important documents together digitally or in a locking cabinet or file safe, but if your loved one had dementia or was in failing health in later years some of these documents may be buried in other junk mail or paperwork.

This part may be tedious, but make sure you can locate:

• Mortgage/Home Ownership Information: title and deed, and lender payment information if the home is still mortgaged.

• Insurance Information: home and life insurance policies

• Financial information: Bank accounts, investment accounts, stocks or bonds, credit cards, and any other debts and payoff information

• Legal information: Will and Trusts

From here, turn on mail forwarding. Set a primary contact to receive and organize all of the mail.

The initial step is just a lot of organizing, but these first steps will make life a lot easier in the long run.

Make a Plan

Losing a loved one is hard. It’s even harder if you then have to manage their estate while navigating grief. Making a plan for what needs to happen in the house and identifying where to start and what to start with will feel incredibly daunting, but will save you time in the long run.

Visit the property and do a walkthrough of the house, top to bottom, including outbuildings, crawlspaces, and garages.

While you’re walking through, bring a locksmith with you to change out any locks if your loved one owned the property. It adds an extra level of security to the process as keys are easy to give out, and you might not always know where they ended up.

Take note of each room as you walk through, and potentially take pictures of sentimental items or make a note of their location. You don’t need to do a full inventory, but taking notes of what each room generally has will help you better estimate how much time that room will take.

From here, make a plan (I know we keep saying this, but making a plan is crucial for this process to go smoothly). Are you selling the house? When does it go on the market? Set your “due date” for the project’s completion to organize how much time you’ll be able to spend. Also, evaluate how much time you have. Are you working full-time and using PTO to manage the project in one marathon week off or a few full-day weekends? Are you retired and able to spend less time over more days at a slower pace? Set reminders in your calendar, and set goals for when and what needs to get done by what date.

Get to Work

First, get all of the sentimental items into storage bins, or otherwise clearly labeled for safekeeping. From here, pick one room each day to work through. It will be tempting to go from room to room throughout the day, but pick one area to start on, and stick with it. Rinse and repeat this process through each room. As you’re going through each room, practice what we’ve talked about in our previous blogs for decluttering and room clearing. This is the fun or horrible part depending on if you’re sentimental or if you’re someone who loves to clear things out. Go through room by room, closet by closet, and evaluate everything. Do you want to keep it? Do you love it? Will you use it? Is it sentimental? If you have duplicates of anything - toss, donate, sell, or recycle. If you have valuables that you want to sell, sell, get them listed sooner than later.

An estate sale can be a great next step after you’ve cleared out each room, especially if you’ve determined you’re going to part with most of the belongings.

Clear the Junk

First, you might be navigating grief from the loss or even guilt from wanting to throw away items that belonged to your deceased loved one. Please take time to process if you are able, and know that these feelings are normal, and if there are items that are broken, unsafe, or generally “junk”, it’s fine and good to throw them away. You can take loads of junk to the dump yourself, or using a junk removal service can make the process much easier. Once you’ve decided what you’re going to keep and what you’re going to sell or donate, we can come handle the rest.

We’ve said it before, but we will say it again – clearing an estate after losing a loved one is emotionally draining and stressful. Use this guide as a reference, and know we’re just a call away if you need a hand.