What to Do When Someone Dies: The Executor & Heir's Guide

The first 72 hours

Nothing about a death is urgent in the way it feels urgent. With narrow exceptions — organ donation, funeral arrangements, and physically securing the home — nearly every task an executor faces has a deadline measured in weeks or months, not hours. Organ donation is the true exception: hospitals notify the local organ procurement organization at or near death, because donated organs stay healthy only briefly once recovered — “minutes count,” as the federal donation authority puts it (HRSA, organdonor.gov). Everything else can wait until you have slept.

In the first days, the practical list is short. Secure the house, the car, and anything valuable or portable. Keep paying nothing except funeral costs. Locate the will — the section on state deadlines below shows that many states put a statutory clock on delivering it to the court, some as short as 10 days. Ask the funeral home to order death certificates, and to report the death to Social Security, which funeral homes generally do as a matter of course (SSA, “What to do when someone dies”).

One Social Security detail catches almost every family: benefits are not payable for the month of death. If a payment arrives for that month or any later month, it must be returned — SSA’s survivor guide says exactly that: “you must return the benefits received for the month of death and any later months” (SSA Pub. No. 05-10008, How Social Security Can Help You When a Family Member Dies). A surviving spouse — or an eligible child, if there is no spouse — can also claim the one-time $255 lump-sum death payment, and must apply within two years (SSA Pub. No. 05-10084, Survivors Benefits; SSA’s phone line is 1-800-772-1213).

Who’s actually in charge (and the liability trap)

Between the death and the court’s appointment, nobody is in charge. The person named in the will is only a nominee; the authority to collect assets, pay debts, and sign for the estate comes from the court’s appointment — the document is usually called letters testamentary or letters of administration. Acting before appointment is where the personal-liability trap lives.

The starkest version is federal: a representative “paying any part of a debt of the person or estate before paying a claim of the Government is liable to the extent of the payment” (31 U.S.C. § 3713(b)). Translated: if you pay the credit card, the roofer, and the heirs, and the IRS later presents a bill the estate can no longer cover, the shortfall can come out of your pocket. State law adds its own versions — creditor priority rules, and the claim windows in the table below that exist precisely so a representative can wait out the claims period before distributing safely.

Two housekeeping steps make your authority legible to the IRS and the banks. File IRS Form 56 to notify the IRS that a fiduciary relationship exists — that you now stand in the taxpayer’s shoes. And get the estate its own employer identification number: the IRS instructs representatives to “apply for an employer identification number (EIN) for the estate” and to use it with banks and payers (IRS Publication 559; see also “File an estate income tax return”). The estate’s money then lives in an estate account under the EIN — never in your personal account. Commingling is the single habit most likely to turn an honest executor into a defendant.

Death certificates

Every institution the estate touches — banks, brokers, insurers, the DMV, the county recorder — will want its own certified copy of the death certificate. Certified copies come from the vital records office of the state (or county) where the death occurred; the federal government does not issue them. The authoritative directory of every state’s vital records office is CDC/NCHS, “Where to Write for Vital Records.”

Order more certified copies than you think you need, at the same time — the funeral home can usually order them for you when it files the death certificate, which is far easier than going back to the county later. Photocopies are not accepted for account closures or title transfers, and each institution tends to keep the copy you give it.

Probate, step by step

Probate is the court process that turns a will (or, without one, the state’s intestacy rules) into authority: it validates the will, appoints the personal representative, supervises the payment of creditors and taxes, and blesses the final distribution. For all its reputation, the process has only five real movements:

1. File the will and petition the court. The custodian of the will delivers it — on the statutory clock shown in the table below — and someone (usually the nominated executor) petitions for appointment.
2. Receive letters and give notice. The court issues letters; the representative notifies heirs and beneficiaries and publishes or mails notice to creditors, which starts the claim window.
3. Inventory the estate. Most states require an inventory of what the decedent owned, on a deadline — 30 days in Missouri, 120 in Nevada and Wyoming, with most states in between (all cited in the table).
4. Pay claims and taxes in the right order. Wait out the claim window, resolve valid claims, file the tax returns described below, and keep the federal priority of 31 U.S.C. § 3713 in mind throughout.
5. Account and distribute. Only then distribute to beneficiaries, close the estate, and be discharged.

When probate is avoidable

A great deal of property never goes through probate at all. Anything with a beneficiary designation or survivorship feature passes outside the will: payable-on-death bank deposits pass “directly to one or more beneficiaries upon the depositor’s death” (FDIC, deposit insurance guide), transfer-on-death securities registrations pass to the named beneficiary by statute (see, e.g., Cal. Prob. Code § 5507, California’s enactment of the uniform transfer-on-death-registration act), and a joint account generally passes to the surviving owner (CFPB, joint accounts explainer). Life insurance and retirement accounts with living named beneficiaries work the same way. Probate governs what is left — property titled to the decedent alone with no designation.

Small-estate shortcuts

Every state also has some simplified track for modest estates — an affidavit presented directly to the bank, or a short-form administration. The thresholds differ sharply by state; five examples, cited to the current statute or official form:

Thresholds verified against the cited statutes and official court forms, July 19, 2026. California’s figure is the inflation-adjusted amount on Judicial Council Form DE-300 for deaths on or after April 1, 2025; Illinois’s current figure is $150,000 — many older articles still say $100,000.

Statutory deadlines, all 50 states + DC

Three clocks matter most in a probate: how fast the will must reach the court, how long creditors have to present claims, and when the inventory is due. All three vary enormously — the will must be delivered within 10 days in Florida and Wyoming, while Texas allows four years to open probate; creditor windows run from 60 days in West Virginia to a year or more elsewhere; and several states have no fixed deadline at all, which the table says plainly. Every cell is cited to the controlling statute or court rule, linked in the right-hand line of each entry.

Every row verified against the text of the cited statute or court rule on the official state source, July 19, 2026. Where a state’s official publisher blocks automated access or offers no free official text (Mississippi, Nevada, New Jersey, North Carolina, Ohio, and Tennessee’s inventory rule), the link goes to a mirror of the statute text and the row’s summary was still checked against it — see the methodology block below.

Accounts, beneficiaries, and things with your name on them

Work through the decedent’s assets in three passes. First, the nonprobate property — beneficiary designations, TOD/POD registrations, joint accounts, life insurance, retirement accounts. Each passes by its own paperwork: the institution wants a certified death certificate and a claim form from the beneficiary, not letters from the court. Second, the probate property, which waits for your letters. Third, the strays: states hold enormous quantities of forgotten property, and the state treasurers’ official search sites — MissingMoney.com and unclaimed.org — let you search for accounts in the decedent’s name for free, including property to which you may now be the heir.

A warning that saves arguments later: the beneficiary designation on an account beats the will. A will that says “everything to my three children equally” does not touch a retirement account whose beneficiary form still names one child — or an ex-spouse. As executor you administer what the will governs; as a family member you should know that the forms, not the will, decide these accounts.

What the estate owes: the tax returns

Most estates owe no estate tax, but nearly every estate has tax paperwork. Four returns cover the field:

• The decedent’s final Form 1040. Filed “the same way you would if the person were alive” for income up to the date of death (IRS, final returns of a deceased person). For a calendar-year taxpayer it is due the usual April 15 following the year of death (IRS Pub. 559).
• Form 1041, the estate’s income tax return. Required for any domestic estate with “gross income for the tax year of $600 or more” — interest, dividends, rent, and gains earned by the estate after death (IRS, Instructions for Form 1041).
• Form 706, the federal estate tax return. Due “within 9 months after the date of the decedent’s death,” with an automatic 6-month filing extension available on Form 4768 (IRS, Instructions for Form 706; About Form 4768). For deaths in 2026 the basic exclusion is $15,000,000 per person, as set by Public Law 119-21’s amendment of IRC § 2010(c)(3) (IRS, “What’s New — Estate and Gift Tax”) — so only estates above that, plus taxable lifetime gifts, owe the tax. A few states levy their own estate or inheritance taxes with much lower thresholds; check your state’s department of revenue. When a large life-insurance policy is what pushes an estate toward the tax, an irrevocable life insurance trust can keep the death benefit out of the taxable estate.
• Form 706 for portability — even with no tax due. A surviving spouse can inherit the decedent’s unused federal exclusion (the DSUE), but only if Form 706 is filed to elect it (IRS, estate tax FAQ). Miss the deadline and a simplified late election is available “on or before the fifth annual anniversary of the decedent’s date of death” for estates under the filing threshold (Rev. Proc. 2022-32). For a married decedent with any real wealth, filing for portability is usually cheap insurance.

One more concept every heir should know: the step-up in basis. Property acquired from a decedent generally takes a new income-tax basis equal to “the fair market value of the property at the date of the decedent’s death” (26 U.S.C. § 1014). That is why heirs need date-of-death values for everything — the appraisal you skip this year becomes the capital-gains fight of a future sale.

Executor compensation, state by state

Executors are entitled to be paid, and the will can set (or waive) the fee. Where the will is silent, states take one of two statutory approaches: a fixed percentage schedule, or a court-determined “reasonable” fee. Six representative states, cited to the statute:

Schedules quoted from the cited statutes, verified July 19, 2026. Executor fees are taxable income; many family executors waive them, especially where the executor also inherits.

The 10 mistakes that cost families the most

1. Distributing before the claim window closes. The creditor deadlines in the table above exist to protect you — distribute early and a late-but-timely claim can land on the representative personally.
2. Paying debts in the wrong order. Federal claims come first (31 U.S.C. § 3713(b)), and states rank everything else. In a solvent estate order barely matters; in a tight one it is everything — and you rarely know which estate you have on day one.
3. Commingling estate and personal money. Open the estate account under the estate’s EIN before a single dollar moves.
4. Missing the will-delivery clock. Several states put teeth on it — Illinois makes willfully secreting a will a felony (755 ILCS 5/6-1), and Kansas can strip a withheld will of effect entirely (K.S.A. 59-617).
5. Skipping the portability election. The five-year late window of Rev. Proc. 2022-32 is generous, but families who never file lose the deceased spouse’s unused exclusion for good.
6. Not returning the last Social Security payment. Benefits for the month of death must go back (SSA Pub. No. 05-10008); spending them creates a debt to the government from day one.
7. Letting insurance lapse on the empty house. Vacant-home coverage is an ordinary administration expense; an uninsured loss is the estate’s — and possibly yours.
8. Skipping date-of-death valuations. The § 1014 step-up only helps heirs who can prove the date-of-death value. Appraise real property, businesses, and anything unusual now.
9. Treating beneficiary designations as governed by the will. They are not — and “fixing” a designation informally among heirs creates gift-tax and creditor problems no one intended.
10. Going without help at the wrong moment. An insolvent estate, a will contest, a going business, or multi-state property is not a DIY project. The fee for a probate attorney is an estate expense; the liability for a bungled administration is often the executor’s.

The executor’s checklist

A one-page working list, in rough order. Print it, write on it — there is no gate and nothing to sign up for.

Common questions

Sources & methodology