after loss

What to Do When Someone Dies: A First-Week Checklist

By Jason Su · Updated September 18, 2026

In the first week, only a handful of things genuinely cannot wait: have the passing certified and order several copies of the death certificate, find out whether written instructions exist, secure the home, vehicles, pets, and anyone who depended on the person, and tell the people who need to know now. Almost everything else can wait. The pressure you feel to do it all immediately usually comes from other people rather than from a deadline.

Why the first week feels impossible

You are being asked to make decisions while you are grieving, and often while hosting visitors, fielding calls, and managing other people’s feelings alongside your own.

Two things make it worse. First, everyone has advice, and some of it is wrong. Second, the tasks arrive with a false urgency attached — a bank letter says “immediately,” a relative says “you should sort that today,” and it is hard to tell which deadlines are real.

Very few of them are real. This page separates the ones that are from the ones that are not.

The short list: what genuinely cannot wait

1. Have the passing certified, and order death certificates

A doctor, hospice nurse, or medical examiner certifies the cause and manner. If the person died at home and was not under hospice care, call emergency services rather than a funeral home — in most places that is the required first step.

Then order copies of the certified death certificate. Order more than you think you need. See how to get death certificate copies for how many and why.

2. Find out whether written instructions exist

Look for a will, a trust, and any letter of instruction. Before you read it, note one thing: do not move or distribute anything yet.

If you cannot find the will, see where to keep a will — including what to do when nobody knows where it is.

3. Make the home, vehicles, and dependents safe

• The home. Lock it, collect the keys, and forward or hold the mail. An unoccupied home is a target, and mail piling up is the clearest signal.
• Vehicles. Remove valuables and keep them somewhere secure.
• Pets. Find out who is caring for them tonight, not next week.
• Dependents. Anyone the person was caring for — a spouse, a parent, a child with a disability — needs continuity now.

4. Locate the important documents

You do not need to read them all. You need to know what exists and where it is. Use the free Document Inventory and walk the house with it.

This one step prevents most of the problems that appear in the following months.

5. Tell the people who need to know now

Employer, close family, anyone providing care, and the person named as a trusted contact in their password manager or on their documents.

Not everyone. Not yet. The full list is a later job — the People to Notify List is built for that stage.

The longer list: what can wait

These feel urgent and mostly are not. Give yourself weeks, not days:

• Cancelling subscriptions and closing accounts — see how to cancel subscriptions after someone dies
• Notifying Social Security, Medicare, and pensions — see how to notify Social Security
• Closing or transferring bank accounts — see how to close a bank account
• Social media accounts, email, and cloud storage
• Sorting decades of paperwork
• Deciding what happens to the house
• Anything involving a lawyer or the estate process

A useful rule: if a task does not affect someone’s physical safety or a hard legal deadline, it can wait until you have slept.

Handle money carefully in the first week

This is the part where early mistakes are hardest to undo.

• Do not spend money that arrives in their name. A pension, benefit, or payroll payment that lands after a passing may have to be returned. Put it somewhere untouched until you know.
• Do not move money between accounts on your own initiative. Even with the best intentions, this can create problems for whoever is authorised to handle the estate.
• Do not pay their debts from your own pocket. In most cases you are not personally responsible for someone else’s debts, and paying them voluntarily can complicate matters.
• Do not distribute belongings yet. Not to family, not to yourself, no matter what anyone asks for in the first week.

If you are not the person named to handle the estate, the honest answer is that the decisions are not yours to make. Ask who is authorised, and let them be.

If you are not the one in charge

If someone else is named to handle the estate, your job in the first week is different, and simpler:

• Find the documents, and tell them where those documents are
• Make the home safe and the pets cared for
• Gather phone numbers
• Keep a note of who gave you what information

That is genuinely helpful. Taking on authority you do not have — cancelling accounts, redirecting mail, moving money — creates problems later that are difficult to unwind.

What not to do

• Do not make large financial decisions. Including selling anything, gifting anything, or paying anything off.
• Do not let a relative take the documents “for safekeeping.” This is one of the most common sources of family conflict, and it usually starts with good intentions. Keep originals together and tell people what exists.
• Do not assume you must handle it alone. Hospitals, hospices, and funeral directors deal with this every day and can tell you what the local sequence is. Ask them.
• Do not skip ordering extra death certificates. Everything that follows — banks, insurers, agencies, utilities — wants one, and reordering later takes weeks.
• Do not delete anything. Not emails, not text messages, not voicemail. Some of it will turn out to matter, and none of it can be recovered.
• Do not answer every question today. “I don’t know yet” is a complete answer in the first week.

Frequently asked

Who is legally in charge right after someone passes?

Whoever is named to handle the estate, once the process makes that official. Until then, a spouse or next of kin usually handles immediate practical matters — the home, the funeral, and notifying people. If there is any disagreement in the family, or any significant property involved, talk to an attorney before you act rather than after.

Do I need a lawyer?

Not for everything, and not immediately. If the estate is small, many people handle it themselves through a simplified process. If there is a house, a business, a second marriage, family disagreement, or a will that is hard to find, a lawyer’s involvement early usually costs less than the alternative.

What if there is no will?

Then state law decides who receives what, and someone still has to be appointed to handle things. That makes the process slower rather than impossible. An attorney can tell you what your state requires.

How long does all of this take?

The first week’s list can be done in a few days. Everything else generally runs for months, and the estate process can take over a year. Knowing that upfront makes the length less alarming.

Does anything about this need to happen in a particular order?

Yes, roughly: certify the passing, order certificates, find the documents, secure property, then notify people. Doing it out of order usually just means repeating steps.

Next step

Do only the short list this week. Everything else on this page can wait, and the people telling you otherwise are usually not the ones who will have to live with the consequences.

Start with the Master Checklist — it lists what this person would have needed, which in turn tells you what to go looking for. Print it, and work down it slowly.

This is general information, not legal, financial, or medical advice. Rules differ from state to state and change over time — please confirm details with the official sources we link and talk with a licensed professional about your situation.