What to do when your spouse dies: a financial checklist (2024)

FAQs

What to do when your spouse dies: a financial checklist? ›

Gather relevant estate planning documents, such as a will or trust. Contact credit bureaus. Notify Equifax, Experian or TransUnion that your spouse is deceased, and any accounts held in their name should be closed. You may also want to request a copy of your spouse's credit report to check for unknown debt.

Gather relevant estate planning documents, such as a will or trust. Contact credit bureaus. Notify Equifax, Experian or TransUnion that your spouse is deceased, and any accounts held in their name should be closed. You may also want to request a copy of your spouse's credit report to check for unknown debt.

Ask your spouse's employer about any benefits you might be entitled to. Request copies of the death certificate. Contact your insurance companies and update them as needed. Contact the Social Security Administration, or give your spouse's Social Security number to the funeral home and ask them to do it.

Joint bank accounts

If one dies, all the money will go to the surviving partner without the need for probate or letters of administration.

Only about a third of all states have laws specifying that assets owned by the deceased are automatically inherited by the surviving spouse. In the remaining states, the surviving spouse may inherit between one-third and one-half of the assets, with the remainder divided among surviving children, if applicable.

A deceased person's bank account is inaccessible unless you're a joint owner, a beneficiary of the account or the estate executor. Because joint ownership and beneficiaries can make a difference in how your bank account funds are distributed, planning is key.

Financial institutions and other organizations to notify of a death. Report the person's death to banks, credit card companies, credit bureaus, and other financial organizations. And contact utilities and places where the person had memberships and subscriptions.

If there's no money in their estate, the debts will usually go unpaid. For survivors of deceased loved ones, including spouses, you're not responsible for their debts unless you shared legal responsibility for repaying as a co-signer, a joint account holder, or if you fall within another exception.

contact immediate Family and those close to you about the loss. Call family, friends, and spiritual counselors for emotional support. Update any key family members. Try to bring them together in person, by phone, or group email so that you may comfort one another and share information updates as needed.

What not to do immediately after someone dies? ›

Upon losing her husband, a surviving wife's inheritance will be determined based on a combination of state law, the husband's last will and testament, any pre-marital or post-marital agreements, title to property, and beneficiaries listed on any investment accounts, retirement accounts, and insurance policies.

You don't have to remove a deceased spouse from a joint bank account, and your account will function normally. But many banks advise their clients to remove their spouse's name from their bank accounts when the time arrives. This is because of security protocols.

There's also the question of whether the money should be dealt with as part of the deceased's estate and wishes in their will. Most joint accounts come with rights of survivorship. This means the surviving account holder can take full ownership of the account by presenting the deceased's Death Certificate to the bank.

Key takeaways. After someone dies, a sole-owned bank account may go to a named beneficiary or be handled by the executor of the estate. Joint accounts typically have automatic rights of survivorship, but it's still important to check with your bank to ensure smooth access to funds.

Most joint bank or credit union accounts are held with “rights of survivorship.” This means that when one account owner dies, the money passes to the surviving owner, or equally to the rest of the owners if there are multiple people on the account.

A personal representative is an estate executor or administrator, or someone who has legal authority to pay debts from the estate. A personal representative's job is to make payments to survivors and handle the debts of someone who has died.