What practical admin tasks were hardest after someone died?
Posted by AfterDeathAdmin@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 34 comments
[removed]
Posted by AfterDeathAdmin@reddit | AskUK | View on Reddit | 34 comments
[removed]
Background-End2272@reddit
Dealing with like energy, mobile phone, internet accounts. It took way more calls than it should have. I wasn't aware of all the accounts my sister had and there's STILL some I'm finding more than a year later but I'm over telling folk she's died.
InternationalRide5@reddit
I think it's going to be a lot more difficult as everything moves online.
Even I'm not sure whether one or two accounts I've had in the past are still active!
Lynvor@reddit
I feeling like telling my parents, who are both 70, that they should start to gather a master file of all important accounts that I would need to close, but I don't really like having a conversation with them about death.
BG3restart@reddit
There's a notebook you can buy from Amazon which acts as a prompt. Maybe show them that as a conversation starter. I've bought one to start completing it to make things easier for my kids and I'm younger than your parents, but my husband died prematurely so I'm probably more aware of what a ball ache it can be. When you're already dealing with grief, you need the admin to be as easy as possible.
Background-End2272@reddit
My sister dying made my parents write out and sort funeral plans and leave details of what needed done. Least there's a small upside here.
Consistent-Sport-481@reddit
Have you used the telly is once service?
This was a life saver!
Background-End2272@reddit
Sure did, that only covers all the government stuff. Not like her Klarna, mobile, internet, shopping channel account etc etc. it was never ending
Consistent-Sport-481@reddit
Hu.
The bank was coverd and from there they told all associated accounts.
Phone, store cards, klarna etc. that's annoying
I'm sorry your still going though all the up heaval.
Background-End2272@reddit
The bank didn't tell us anything, not sure why. Was a pain in the bum.
Additional-Guard-211@reddit
Martin Lewis has some good infomation on this and everyone should take his advice (have i? No).
Consistent-Sport-481@reddit
Funeral arrangements. No idea where to start especially considering it was sudden.
The pension people were the worst to deal with nearly a year on were still going back and forth.
Access to services and information is really bad. You have to search for everything or hope someone else tells you.
If you only have the interim death certificate things take longer as they all want the 'official' one.
Arbdew@reddit
When my Dad died, one of his pensions was easy. The other, administered by a local authority was a nightmare. Every other institution accepted a pic/electronic copy of the death certificate, but not them. I closed loads of accounts, ISA's, pensions which hadn't been drawn down no problem but for £300 pension which he hadn't been paid I had to send everything in. Took 6 months from notifying them to getting the underpayment.
Strong_Access_8179@reddit
I don't know if this helps you in any way, but when my father died, my mother said the hardest part wasn't any of the admin stuff; it was just having to say that horrible sentence "My husband has died" over and over again. My brother and I ended up handling all those phone calls (although we both have a terrible phobia of making phone calls) just to spare her that part of it.
MillyMcMophead@reddit
I understand this. My sister took it all on herself to let everyone know when dad died because my mum just couldn't. I hate using the phone and am not on Facebook so sis contacted most of their friends via Messenger and WhatsApp. She only spoke to close friends on the phone.
None of us could face making those awful calls, you and you brother did really well.
DogtasticLife@reddit
I walked into my parents house a couple of weeks after my Dad died to hear my very well mannered 80yr old mother barking “because he’s bloody dead” down the phone. Turns out some financial institutions are extremely bloody sexist about handling accounts when the “man” of house is not available
Warm-Reference-4965@reddit
When my mother passed away we used the government 'Tell us once' system. My sister and I ended up nicknaming it 'Tell us 100 times'. In our opinion it was pretty useless but I've seen others say it is excellent.
By far the worst was her local council. They were told time and time again that she had passed away yet still kept billing her for council tax and then sending her threatening letters (that we had on a Royal Mail redirection to my sister's house). This was council tax for after her death btw, she had been fully paid up until then. Ironically her house...that was a council house, had long since been passed back to them. We cleared it out and handed back the key within a few weeks of her passing.
Things got so bad with the threatening council tax letters that my sister went down their offices with my mother's urn and plonked her on the counter. That sorted it. I can laugh now!
MillyMcMophead@reddit
That's bloody terrible from the council, how disgusting! I'd have loved to have seen their faces when they were presented with the urn.
Poo_Poo_La_Foo@reddit
A family friend passed recently and his wife has been commenting about how hard dealing with bills and accounts and payments us.
Like, the gas company, mobile phone providers, etc.
Her main complaint was that every company has a different set of rules. Some need a death certificate. Some don't. Some require various passwords or codes. None of which she had.
Nightmare.
MillyMcMophead@reddit
Yes this bit about death certificates is so true. When we were on the phone to the Registrar they asked us how many copies we required but it's something you don't know in advance.
As we dealt with each company it became clear just how they vary. Being able to email copies across was a godsend but to all the other companies who required a physical copy - why?
MillyMcMophead@reddit
Definitely finding everything. Luckily I had access to my dad's bank accounts so found a lot of stuff out via that route. Without that access I don't know what we'd have done. It turned out that he had endless internet subscriptions and was paying for things he never used. They were all a total PITA to cancel.
My husband dealt with all the pensions side of things as well as his car lease and bank. None of it was easy. They all send you letters or tell you that they're sorry for your loss but they're all absolute buggers to deal with.
My husband and I did all the admin to save my poor mum having to deal with it and it has taken ages. We're still waiting for various solicitors to get in touch to discuss his debts and loans and stuff. It's now been nine weeks since he died.
We're just so tired of it all and want it finished so that we can get on with our own lives.
172116@reddit
We found the same when my gran died. The saving grace was that she died in April, so just before and after her death, we got all the year end bank statements, so at least we were able to close down the bank accounts - a lot of other stuff crawled out the woodwork when the payments stopped.
Angelicant@reddit
Premium Bonds were really admin heavy. The banks varied massively. I think Natwest was the most difficult, and Halifax was worryingly easy. Coventry Building Society were amazingly kind and supportive. The hardest thing was finding all the bank and building society accounts for someone who had lots of accounts in different places.
Scarred_fish@reddit
I dealt with the practicalities when my Mother in Law passed a year and a bit ago.
The official stuff was no problem, the Tell us Once service was great.
Banks etc again, very understanding, helpful, and not a huge deal. Just some understandble checks which is to be expected.
The only service that was really awkward was BT. Just terribly insensitive and a constant repetition. It was in her name but they refused to move it over to my father in laws name until the current contract was up, resultin gin him getting letters an emails with her name on them.
Several times the call was cut short because they "could only deal with the account holder" (who was, of course, dead).
Given how common a situation this must be, such a big company to seemingly have no concept of an account holder dying was quite surprising.
intangible-tangerine@reddit
A long time ago I worked for a bank and helping people deal with this admin was part of my job.
The thing that I saw cause the most upset was unclear and contested wills.
E.g if everything is left to 'Sarah Jane' but the deceased's wife, ex wife, daughter and step daughter are all called 'Sarah Jane'
Not much you can do about that after the death but it could be avoided with better will writing services
L-0-T-H-0-S@reddit
The death certificate - it's not the actual process itself, it's the requirement to have to provide x-number of documents proving both you (as the person registering) and the deceased were and being forced to have to do this within an insanely short period of time from the deceased's death.
The last thing you want to be doing is searching for paper work like this - either reduce the documents necessary or extend the time you have to register.
Key_Produce2617@reddit
We used the tell us once service but turned out my father in law hadn’t told anyone about my mother in laws death so when the banks were canceled, we got council tax bills for her instead. Took months of them not being bothered to return emails and phone calls to sort it out.
cdp181@reddit
Selling their house
turboRock@reddit
My wife passed away recently. She didn't have a will. Which isnt a massive issue as her estate was quite small and there are no other family members to contest it. One I would say though is that people should arrange their funerals, or at least give some indication if what they want.
Other than that not much else. They government have a "tell us once" service that sorts various bits of bureaucracy out
Orwell1984_2295@reddit
The paperwork is a lot, but clearing out a house that's been lived in for 50+ years to prepare for selling and dealing with family conflict around the whole thing are the toughest parts, for us anyway.
Boboshady@reddit
Finding it all - all the accounts, pensions, investments etc. It's really opened my eyes as to how needlessly difficult it would be for my partner to unpick my life, if I popped it. It's so annoying to spend ages finding all the bank accounts, and then for most of them to be basically empty anyway...and this is not about there not being money in them, it's the time and effort it takes.
So - write everything down somewhere secure - an encrypted note or similar - and close down any accounts you don't need any more. Your loved ones will thank you.
yesterdaysomelette22@reddit
Depends on how complicated the estate is. Make sure there’s a clear will - that solves a lot of delay problems and arguments. I found stuff like banks, utilities, council tax , tv licence (yes I buy one) easy. Organisations seem to resource their bereavement services quite well so I wasn’t on hold for hours like you can be as a mere paying customer. The medical register and death certificate stuff is pretty straightforward and, again, they are tooled up to make it as easy as possible.
GlumAd9856@reddit
The hardest part is finding details of all the accounts/bills/savings etc if they haven't written them all down clearly. When my Dad died there were 10k+ of shares that I literally didn't find until a year afterwards.
Most things weren't that complicated; once you have death certificates and copies of probate you just send them out to everyone involved. Just make sure you have enough copies that you aren't waiting for people to send them back.
The absolute hardest thing is if you aren't married to your partner then you're not considered next of kin, which means you can't sign stuff and you won't be automatically eligible to various benefits/pension payments.
Medway_Mod@reddit
When my nan was elderly and had to move to a care home, my dad gave her a super simple mobile phone (her room didn't have a personal landline for her to use).
Sometimes when she called someone, they wouldn't answer because they were busy or whatever, and for some reason my nan would assume this meant she was out of credit and she would then give someone a tenner in cash and have them add a tenner credit to her account.
When she passed away, we figured this out and found that there were hundreds of pounds of credit on her phone.
Trying to get that money back from the provider (Orange maybe? This was a while back it was one of the companies that doesn't exist any more) was a fucking nightmare. In the end my dad accepted the money as credit onto his own phone, and given that he only uses his phone for calls and texts it's probably still all on his account and I'll one day inherit hundreds of pounds of phone credit myself.
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