It turns out managing things after a death is not a quick process. Over the next few weeks I have a whole bunch of chores. Thankfully I was able to locate enough bread in my grandfather’s estate that all of his bills will be covered. But death is an expensive process and I wonder how many people are actually prepared for it.
What’s especially wild for me is there are at least 3 physical copies of the will. Each naming someone else to be an executor of the estate. As it stands with this death process, because I paid for the cremation, for now the government just assumes I’m the one handling it.
Still in a few months, we should get the final copy of a will and the actual responsibility will land on someone, officially.
The “Will Search” is mandatory
When someone passes in Quebec, a “will search” needs to be performed. There are two databases that need to be searched in order to validate the most recent copy of a will. All the old wills don’t count, so the search will confirm if there’s a new one that no one is aware of.
Then the notary that notarized that will, can provide a copy, if needed.
It would take a notary about 3 weeks to do this search and costs between 250-500$. If the estate has some money, the estate can refund you for this. If the person who died left you no money, that’s an out of pocket expense, not covered by the funeral money given by the government.
You can do the search on your own, granted it will take longer. The real problem is that you need a death certificate to start the process. A notary can start the process with the “attestation of death” that you get from the funeral home. So going through a notary will shave weeks to months off the process.
We could start the search today and it would take a few weeks. Then the minute the death certificate arrives we can have the results and the final copy of the will. This makes a difference because of how long death certificates take to come.
Death certificates take a long time to come
The funeral home is going to ask you a bunch of questions related to the person who died. Stuff like their SIN (I don’t have that), their full marriage history (my grandad had more than one romantic partner in life, but no one knows the extent of marriage history), and other details like the hometown.
The more of these questions you answer, the faster the death certificate comes. The way the funeral home put it, expect it to be 2-3 months when all the information is provided. Otherwise, the government has to research these things. I find that to be kind of preposterous, how does the government not have the dude’s SIN and marriage history a quick search away? Either way that should delay the process for weeks.
The death certificate is required for two things. The first is to get the will from the notary. The second is to access any money from the banks. Death certificates also cost 55$ for the first and 59$ for the copy.
I can see now why a lot of families refuse the responsibility and hand this off to the government. This is a time consuming process. I’m only at the part of applying for a death certificate. In the future I’ll update you on what comes next.
Dead people must honour their contracts
This one is wild in principle but I guess it makes sense. Folk enter into contracts with companies, stuff like payment plans for internet modems, car insurance and yes, rental leases. When someone dies, that contract doesn’t just go away.
The estate of the person owes money for the remaining time on the contract. We are looking at over 600$ to Videotron because of the “boxes” he bought on a payment plan that are past a return date (maybe we can flip these?). I imagine I can break a lease early with a landlord, because they know they can fill that spot immediately, but in theory a landlord can hold you until the end of the lease.
Imagine owing 11 months on a 1500$ rent. I am blessed we are nowhere near facing that number. He has a relatively small rent and I have yet to talk to the landlord. How that plays out remains to be seen, but all things I’m grateful the estate can afford these contracts.
Recently the homie Flacko Bayo made a post asking if people have the 5-10K required to deal with funerals. You can definitely add the next 5-10K required to deal with all the contracts and estate stuff. Maybe the person who passed left something, maybe they don’t have anything but debt.
Shoutout my grandfather for paying his cards down month to month. Both his credit cards are near 0 relatively speaking.
Then there is the stuff the person owned
My grandfather does not have a lot of stuff, all things considered. There is a modest amount of furniture for a 3 and a half, and you can only fit so many possessions into that space. Maybe there is some secret storage locker out there with more things. Who knows?
My next steps there are to organize all his possessions into four categories:
Stuff to keep
Stuff to donate
Stuff to throw in the trash
Stuff to sell
I want to try and sell all his furniture on Marketplace. He has a leaf blower, if no one wants the leaf blower, we can sell that. It sounds like a not fun exercise to be honest, real time consuming. Since I ignored my grandmothers before they died, my soul needs to do something to feel redemption.
But also, no way I’ma put this burden on people when it comes to my death. If you are able to deal with your death stuff before you die, pre-pay for all the shit you can. Maybe I’m just getting older, but with the amount of money I blow on a bunch of random crap, I can afford to cover my own “will search” after I die. I’m sure you can pre-pay for all the services.
Or get life insurance. Like Rene Marshall the financial advisor homie is always pushing for. If there’s a life insurance policy, and a regular death that they can’t disqualify over negligent habits, that should cover all the things including debts. This whole process has me thinking a lot on my own mortality. This whole thing is affecting me.
Life feels time strapped and heavy. But through the hard times we grow and prosper. Anyway, these death related blogs are about as fun as they can be.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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