General Information for handling deceased parents estate.

ChatGPT:

I'm sorry to hear about your father's passing. It's great that you're taking proactive steps to support your mom during this time. Here are some general tips to consider:

1. **Legal Matters:** Make sure you have all necessary legal documents in order, such as wills, trusts, and power of attorney. Keep copies of these documents easily accessible.

2. **Financial Management:** Continue monitoring accounts and bill payments. Consider consolidating accounts or setting up automatic transfers to simplify management.

3. **Insurance:** Review your parents' insurance policies to understand coverage and ensure they remain active and adequate for your mom's needs.

4. **Social Security:** Attend the appointment with Social Security to understand any benefits your mom may be entitled to after your father's passing.

5. **Support Networks:** Consider reaching out to local senior centers or community organizations for additional support and resources for your mom.

6. **Emotional Support:** Don't forget to take care of yourself and your mom emotionally during this challenging time. Seek support from friends, family, or a counselor if needed.

7. **Estate Planning:** If not already done, consider discussing estate planning with an attorney to ensure your mom's wishes are documented and legally binding.

8. **Healthcare:** Ensure your mom's healthcare needs are being met and consider discussing any changes with her healthcare provider.

Remember, it's okay to ask for help and seek guidance from professionals when needed. Take things one step at a time and prioritize tasks based on urgency and importance.

Does he have any assets other than checking accounts and insurance accounts?

Things like a car, home, old stocks that are holding paper certificate form or with Computershare/Broadridge/AST/Equitrust, and brokerage accounts that are NOT IRAs? Also, assuming this is LA, the same question would be true for your mother. It’s very common that people ignore single accounts for the surviving spouse even though they’re likely community property. All of those accounts will go through the probate process.

Living Trust for your mom.

If he has IRA’s and/or other accounts solely in his name, get them transferred over to mom’s name asap. At her age you don’t want to take the chance of her passing and then have those go through her estate, which can have negative tax consequences and additional hoops to jump through.

Sorry for your loss. I lost my mother last summer and my father a year earlier. Mom had a devastating stroke 7 months prior to her passing.

Are you the only child? That makes it easier in regards to not having to deal with others that may interfere.

My mom had me on her bank accounts for years as a joint owner. Dealing with the banks was easy. I was also her beneficiary on everything. What wasn't easy was dealing with the things that my name wasn't attached to - her home and car, insurance for both, etc.

I petitioned the court for temporary guardianship the week following her stroke and permanent guardianship one month before she passed. The guardianship allowed me to put my name on her vehicle title and also on 1% ownership of her deed to her house. The 1% deed thing was legal move to keep Medicaid from forcing me to sell her house if she had met the 6 month threshold on their dime paying for her nursing home. That's in KY. She didn't make it to 6 months so I got to keep the house and whatever proceeds from selling it along with her car and other assets.

I created a funeral trust using her money and put 17K into it. The funeral director walked me through it. An advantage of growing up in small town. I spent 10K and the difference came back to me.

I created an Irrevocable Trust to put all her funds into one place and the proceeds of the sale of her house and insurance checks, etc.

Since I was joint owner of her bank accounts I created online portal so I could pay her utilities, insurance, property taxes, etc until I sold her house. I did this before the Irrev. Trust actually.

Mom didn't have a will but I was her only heir. I had to open a probate and get administratorship of her estate after her death, another trip to court, my 4th. You'd do well to get Power of Attorney over your mom now and do some of the things I did.

The funeral home let Social Security know she passed. That death benefit from SS only applies under certain stipulations. It doesn't go to everybody. I had to let KY State Retirement folks know and her 401K folks.

Putting all her assets into a Trust with you as a Trustee would be the way to go. Get what you can out of her name.

It's a helluva lot of work if your the only child. My wife helped tremendously.

Reading this brings three things to mind:

A) Get you own financial house in order

B) If you have (a) living parent(s), especially if they also have other heirs, get that situation nailed down

C) if you are married to someone and they have a (B) scenario, do all you can to help them get their situation nailed down

OP: Sorry for your loss, thanks for the information.