The first 48 hours after someone dies

First: the legal pronouncement

A death has to be officially pronounced before anything else can happen. Who does that depends on where the person died.

• In a hospital or care home: staff handle it.
• At home, under hospice care: call the hospice. A nurse will come. You do not need to call 911.
• At home, unexpectedly: call 911. If there is a do-not-resuscitate order, have it in your hand when help arrives.

Tell the people who need to know today

Close family, and anyone who would be hurt to hear it from someone else. Ask one person to make the other calls for you. If the person was working, their employer should hear within a day or two. If they were an organ donor, tell the hospital staff right away, because timing matters.

Look after the living, and the home

• Arrange care for any children, dependent adults and pets.
• Lock the home and the car. If the house will be empty, ask a neighbor to keep an eye on it and take in the mail.
• Find their phone and keep it charged. Do not cancel the phone plan yet: sign-in codes for other accounts arrive on that number.
• Throw out food that will spoil. Leave everything else exactly where it is.

Look for their wishes

Before you choose a funeral home, look for anything they wrote down: a letter of wishes, a prepaid funeral plan, a note about burial or cremation, membership of a veterans or faith organization. People often keep these with their will or in a desk drawer. If they kept an envelope with SuddenGone, the person they named will be able to open it after the waiting period, so do not wait on it for decisions that must be made today.

Choose a funeral home

The funeral home will collect the person, guide you through the arrangements and file for the death certificate. You are allowed to ask for a written price list and to compare. You do not have to decide everything in the first conversation.

Ask them to order certified copies of the death certificate for you. It is the document every bank and insurer will ask for. See our guide on how many copies to order.

What can wait

Nearly everything involving money. You do not need to call the bank, the insurer or the pension provider in the first two days, and you will not have the death certificate yet anyway. The accounts are not going anywhere.

Mistakes that are easy to make this week

• Do not move money out of their bank accounts, even if you have the sign-in. A password is access, not the legal right to the money, and using it that way can create real problems for the estate later. Looking in their email or phone for information is a different matter.
• Do not give away or throw out belongings yet. Something that looks worthless may be named in the will, and papers in a drawer may be the only record of an account.
• Do not pay their debts from your own pocket. Debts are usually settled from the estate. Ask the executor first.
• Be careful what the obituary says. A full date of birth, a home address and a funeral time tell thieves who has died and when the house will be empty.
• Expect scam calls. Anyone who phones to say the person owed money and you must pay today is almost certainly lying.