What we do not do
We are not your lawyer, your accountant or your financial adviser
We will not guess at the estate, the taxes or the will, and you should be wary of anybody who does.
Between the paperwork we do and the paperwork an estate needs there is a line, and we stay on our side of it. Probate, the will, transferring the house, whether an account was held jointly, what is owed and to whom, whether a pre-payment affects a Medicaid assessment — all of that is somebody else's qualified work and we will tell you so rather than have a go.
A confident wrong answer from a funeral director in a bereaved family's kitchen is a real harm and it is easy to give. What we can do is make sure whoever does handle it has the certified copies they need on the first day rather than the tenth.
Where our paperwork ends and an estate's begins
The line is sharper than it looks, and it is worth seeing before anybody offers to help you across it.
Our side is short and it is entirely about the death itself. The information the certificate needs, filing it, the permit that follows, the certified copies, notifying the federal government, and filling in the forms for what the family may be entitled to. That is the list and it does not grow.
The estate is everything after that and it is a different profession. Probate, the will, the accounts, the house, the taxes, what is owed and to whom. We stop at that line and say so, which is less satisfying in the moment than having a go and considerably better a month later.
What to do about it
The questions we will not answer, and where they belong
All four of these are asked here most weeks, and the honest answer to each is the name of a profession.
Whether probate is needed, and how it starts
A question for a lawyer, and frequently a short and inexpensive conversation with one. Ask us and you will get the profession rather than the answer, which is the useful thing we have.
Whether an account was held jointly, and what follows from that
It depends on how the account was set up, which we cannot see and should not guess at. The bank knows how it was set up; a lawyer knows what follows.
Whether a pre-payment affects a Medicaid assessment
This one comes up constantly and it is where a confident wrong answer does the most damage. It belongs with somebody qualified to advise on that assessment, and it should be asked before money moves rather than afterwards.
What the tax position is
An accountant's work. The honest answer from a funeral director is a blank one, and be wary of a fuller one.
What we can do about all of it
Make sure whoever does handle it has enough certified copies on the first day rather than the tenth. Ten is the number we suggest for an ordinary estate, because the second order is slower and costs more than the first.
How to recognise it
What a less honest version of this looks like
The risk here is rarely a firm overstepping on purpose. It is a kind person at a kitchen table who does not want to say they do not know.
A legal answer given quickly, in a kitchen
It is offered to be helpful and it is acted on because of where it was given and how certain it sounded. A wrong one costs a family months, and occasionally a great deal more than months.
The phrase we usually find that, applied to law
Usually is a description of other people's paperwork rather than of yours. Ask whether the person answering is qualified to advise on it, and treat a straight no as the useful answer it is.
Advice about a pre-payment from the firm that would hold it
Whether to make money irrevocable is a financial decision with consequences well outside a funeral. The firm receiving it is not the right one to weigh that for you. Ask somebody with no interest in the answer.
Saying we do not know costs us nothing and is oddly hard to say out loud. It is still the only version of this conversation that helps anybody.
What we will do is keep our side of the paperwork moving and in order, so that the part which is somebody else's work is never held up waiting on ours.
- The paperwork, in order — Every step, in sequence, with whose job each one is written next to it.
- Death certificates — Who asks for a certified copy, how many each of them keeps, and why a photocopy is refused.
- What pre-planning does not lock in — The other page where a financial question turns up dressed as a funeral one.
The rest of the argument
One argument in nine parts
Each of these is a place where a family is told less than it needs to know, by somebody, in an ordinary week. They are on separate pages because they come up separately. They are the same argument.
The other eight
If somebody has told you what the estate needs
Ring us for the certified copies and ring a lawyer for the rest. Getting the copies moving on the first day is the part that makes the rest of it quicker.