What if I die without a will? For the United States

What if I die without a will?  

Info for the United States

Dying without a will - known as dying "intestate" - means you have no say over who receives your assets, and can leave your heirs and the court system the complex and costly job of wrangling over who should get what.

Your assets go into what's called "probate" - an expensive and drawn out legal process which determines who inherits your estate, and can take anywhere from a few months to a few years, depending on how complicated the estate is.

So-called intestacy laws vary considerably from state to state. In general, though, if you die and leave a spouse and kids, your assets will be split between your surviving mate and children. If you're single with no children, then the state is likely to decide who among your blood relatives will inherit your estate.

Probate is a fancy term for the legal process that occurs after a person dies. The probate court system must first validate that the will is authentic, and then proceed to distribute the estate among the heirs. When a person leaves no will, the probate court must decide, according to the laws of the state, who gets what.

Probate is an expensive process and can take anywhere from a few months to a few years, depending on how complicated the estate is. If you want to spare your heirs the hassle of probate, there are a few ways to avoid the process, such as a revocable living trust.

http://money.cnn.com/retirement/guide/estateplanning_wills.moneymag/index6.htm

  What Happens When a Person Dies Without a Will?

By Katherine at Legal Language
Posted on 07/21/2010
In Legal Resources

Many people put off creating a will for many years, but what happens if you die without one?

Whether you are young or old, rich or poor, you should consider creating a will or trust. When a person dies without a will, an already difficult situation can become a complicated legal mess for the person’s loved ones.

The State Is Involved

When a person dies without a will, it is said that the person died “intestate.” Each state has intestacy laws in place which determine who is entitled to the deceased’s property and assets.

While intestacy laws vary slightly from state to state, they generally follow the same path, especially for smaller estates. If someone dies without a will but owns no property and has assets of less than $100,000, no formal court proceeding is required. Family members can file a Declaration of Small Estate through a bank or even the DMV and are then allowed to collect and split the deceased’s assets.

If property is involved, however, collecting the estate becomes more complicated.

Property & Relationships Are Involved

When a person dies without a will and owns property, the process varies considerably based on the deceased’s relationship status.

If the person who dies without a will is single with or without children, the process is generally easier than if the deceased is married or has a domestic partner.

What If the Person Who Dies Without a Will Is Single?

If a person who is not married dies without a will, the person’s estate goes to his or her child or is split evenly between multiple children.

If the person who dies without a will has no children, then the estate goes to his or her parents. If the parents are deceased, the estate is split among siblings.

What If the Person Who Dies Without a Will Is Married?

State laws vary far more widely if a person dies without a will and leaves behind a spouse or domestic partner, children and other relatives.

If there are children in the relationship, they may inherit up to two-thirds of the estate while the spouse receives the remainder.

If there are no children in the relationship, the surviving spouse may inherit the entire estate — or, depending on the state, as little as one-third of the property and assets, with the rest going to the parents and siblings of the deceased.

Excerpts from http://www.legallanguage.com/legal-articles/dies-without-a-will/

Dying Without a Will in Canada

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Written by The Editors

When someone dies without a will, or a will cannot be located, or is located but is deemed invalid, the person is said to have died intestate. Provincial laws deal with this situation, as each province has a potential interest in the deceased person's estate. The assets owned by the deceased at time of death are known as that person's estate. Any debts the person owed need to be paid out of the estate, and anything remaining (the "residue" of the estate) can be divided among the heirs of the deceased person. Note that taxes are a debt. So far, this is the same as what happens when someone dies with a valid will. The difference is, when you die with a valid will, distribution is usually done by the person you appointed as your executor, according to the wishes you expressed in your will. Administration When a person dies intestate, family members may apply to the courts to act as the estate administrator (sometimes know as the estate trustee). If the court provides a certificate of appointment, the administrator must identify and settle all debts in the estate. If anything remains, the administrator must then determine how to divide the residue and must try to locate and obtain the agreement to the division from legal heirs (the usual order or priority is: spouse, children, parents, brothers and sisters, and more distant family such as nieces and nephews). If no member of the immediate family of the deceased is willing to act as administrator, or none is able to take on the task, then the court may appoint a trust company to undertake the task. Problems If the assets of he deceased person have some value, the risk of conflicts among potential heirs is high. In the absence of a will, the individual acting as the administrator of the estate is likely to be confronted with emotional claims ("I was always her favorite", or "He promised me I would get ...") and there is a strong possibility that cooperation in the process will not happen. Solution Write your will! We all like to think we will live a long time, and many of us have a superstitious fear of preparing a will. Reality, however, dictates that accidents and sudden, fatal illness will take some people much sooner than anyone would have predicted. Once you start acquiring assets of value — a home, a pension plan, investments, and similar — you should prepare your first will. Review your will once a year after you write it (a good time is when you are doing your annual tax return and thinking about your assets), and update it as needed. A small effort on your part may save your family a lot of unnecessary pain and conflict. http://www.self-counsel.com/news/law/wills-and-estates/256-dying-without-a-will-in-canada.html

Preparing the Final Tax Return

Preparing the Final Tax Return

Who is responsible for filing the deceased’s final tax return?

The deceased’s legal representative is responsible for ensuring that the tax return is filed. The legal representative would be the Executor (as named in the will) or the Administrator as appointed by the court. As the legal representative, you may wish to appoint an authorized representative to deal with the Canada Revenue Agency for tax matters on your behalf. You may do so by completing Form T1013, T1013.

What is the deadline for filing the final return?

If death occurred between January 1, 2011 and October 31, 2011, the final return is due by April 30, 2012. If death occurred between November 1, 2011 and December 31, 2011, the final return is due 6 months after the date of death. The due date for filing the T1 return of a surviving spouse or common-law partner who was living with the deceased is the same as the due date for filing the deceased’s final return. However, any balance owing on the surviving spouse’s or common-law partner’s return still has to be paid on or before April 30, 2012 to avoid interest charges.

If the deceased or the deceased’s spouse (or common law partner) was carrying on a business, in 2011 the deadlines are extended as follows. If death occurred between January 1, 2011 and October 31, 2011, the final return is due by June 15, 2012 though any taxes owing are due by April 30, 2012. If death occurred between November 1, 2011 and December 15, 2011, the final return is due June 15, 2012 and any taxes owing are due 6 months after the date of death. If death occurred between December 16, 2011 and December 31, 2011, the final tax return and any taxes owing are due 6 months after the date of death. The due date for filing the T1 return of a surviving spouse or common-law partner who was living with the deceased is the same as the due date for filing the deceased’s final return. However, any balance owing on the surviving spouse’s or common-law partner’s return still has to be paid on or before April 30, 2012 to avoid interest charges.

If a person dies after December 31, 2011 but on or before April 30, 2012, and that person had not yet filed the 2011 tax return, the due date for filing it, as well as for paying the balance owing, is six months after the date of death. The due date for filing the 2011T1 return of a surviving spouse (or common law partner) who was living with the deceased is the same as the due date for filing the deceased’s prior year return. However, any balance owing on the surviving spouse’s or common law partner’s return still has to be paid on or before April 30, 2011 to avoid interest charges.

How do you notify the CRA that someone has died?

You should provide the CRA with the deceased’s date of death as soon as possible. You can call them at 1-800-959-8281, or complete the form “Request for the Canada Revenue Agency to update records” found at T4011. Send the completed form to your tax services office or tax center.

CRA has a 33 page guide titled T4011 – Preparing Returns for Deceased Persons 2011. It can be found online at DP 2011.

More information to come…

I’ll have more tax information posted soon, so please revisit Widowed.ca soon. We’re here to help you take control of the future and move to the next chapter of your life. Should you have questions you’d like to see addressed in a future blog, please e-mail me at: jennifer@widowed.ca.

For more information you can contact Dedicated Financial Solutions. Or use our Looking for Help? search tool on the right sidebar and our Home Page to find additional experts in your area.

Excerpts from    http://widowed.ca/preparing-the-final-tax-return/

RENT A MOURNER

‘Rent A Mourner’ 

Helps You Look More Popular At Your Funeral

Posted by CDFuneralNews

Hiring a professional mourner or training your staff to act as professional mourners gained national attention when the practice was exposed during the reality show ‘Best Funeral Ever‘. Now the Huffington Post has taken notice.

From Huffington Post:

A crowded funeral is one symbol of a well-lived life, but for those who have burned some bridges, one U.K. company has a solution to boost memorial service attendance.

Rent-A-Mourner, based in Essex, England, hires out fake mourners to local funerals for around $68 for two hours of grief, The Telegraph reports. Actors stand in as friends of the deceased, adding numbers to the crowd, said company founder Ian Robertson, who started the business last year.

To help the hired grievers fit in, the actors are briefed about the life of the deceased so that they can talk to other funeral-goers as if they had been friends, according to the company. “We will take your guidance on how you would like us to integrate and mix with your other guests,” its website states.

The idea is not new in other parts of the world. In some African countries, China and Middle Eastern countries it’s tradition to hire professional mourners who come to publicly grieve at funerals. In Ivory Coast, the job is a sought-after career for some women, who can make make up to several hundred dollars per day for their weeping services, according to a Radio Netherlands report.

The New York Times even noted the practice as long ago as 1877, with a short item about the popularity of “professional weepers” in Asia. The author envisioned that one day mechanical grievers could replace humans at American funerals: “Probably we shall use steam mourners at no distant day, for it is the firm conviction of the average American that whatever is worth doing at all is worth doing by steam.”

How To Seem More Popular At Your Funeral

A crowded funeral is one symbol of a well-lived life, but for those who have burned some bridges, one U.K. company has a solution to boost memorial service attendance. Rent-A-Mourner, based in Essex, England, hires out fake mourners to local funerals for around $68 for two hours of grief, The Telegraph reports.

via Huffingtonpost

Article taken from:
http://connectingdirectors.com/page/2

Funeral Party? YES

Your Life, Your Party

Butterflies, wagon trains, antique cars, brunch, slot machines, popcorn, and fireworks.  What do these have in common? They are all elements of a good party.  They are also elements of an appropriate memorial.  When it comes to a creating a meaningful memorial, there are lots of options.

In recent years the use of photographs has become commonplace at many funerals or memorial celebrations.  Family photos may be in the frames brought from home,  arranged in a montage with other photos, or played on a large screen in a moving video set to music.

Many other ideas are also being  incorporated in memorial celebrations that focus on the positive memories, life’s work, and hobbies of an individual.  Many people in Charlotte may remember the wagon train complete with outriders on horseback that was part of one individual’s funeral procession to the cemetery.  Other’s may remember a helicopter fly over and salute at the cemetery committal service of another.  Fishing and hunting trophies have been included in other funeral and memorial services.  All these ideas represent what family members want others to celebrate and remember about their lost family members.

How often have you heard people remark “when I die I just want them to have a party”?  While few people actually feel like having a party when they have lost a family member, there is a similarity between some vestiges of a party  in many  of today’s, funerals, celebrations or memorials.

Nobody would ever think a funeral is fun.  However, by including the elements of a deceased’s personality in  a positive manner,  funerals, memorials and celebrations have become an uplifting experience that helps surviving family members start their journey through grief following a loss with a smile on their face.

So you want to be remembered?  You want to have a party?  You can start by writing down some of the attributes you might want included in a memorial, or funeral, either for yourself or that of a family member.   These simple steps will be invaluable to family and friends.  The next step would be to record these preferences in a form of a Preplan, or Pre-arrangement with the funeral home of your choice.  That way they will be filed in a safe, secure and retrievable manner for family to use as a guide  at the time they need it most.

Article posted on Connecting Directors -- 

http://connectingdirectors.com/articles/39406-your-life-your-party-funeral-home-nails-it

Check out -- 

Check this out -- 

http://www.thepartyofyourlife.com/#

Death is a bummer, but it's the one sure thing in life. The way I see it, you're better off accepting it and going out in style with an event designed to celebrate you, you, you, as well as entertain your loved ones. And who better to plan a party all about you than you?

The Party of Your Life will help you explore the full range of creative, culinary, musical, and theatrical possibilities of a well-planned (i.e. self-planned) life celebration. This book is for anyone who wants to say goodbye in his or her own special way. It's also for control freaks like me, who don't trust their survivors to throw them the funeral to end all funerals.

Amazon price at time of this published page is $11.93 not bad for ideas you've probably  never heard of..and may say. YES, that's what I want.

http://www.amazon.com/gp/aws/cart/add.html/ref=as_li_ss_til?SessionId=175-1664170-3652045&SubscriptionId=D68HUNXKLHS4J&AssociateTag=fitnesstravel-20&ASIN.1=159580062X&Quantity.1=1&adid=0YD852MKZNS8NEGEYA7N&linkCode=as4&OfferListingId.1=GuMy5ga9EBp%252FOZ16BjRwIrTMJNMyEcpSsG%252F0jFVZ76%252BNEdYoa920qV6i3czcKkOTZqwxuvY3PdibeVpRrshHqEoKlEEGBWgniwZBFQGSVZr2fc76mbyLLw%253D%253D&submit.add.x=57&submit.add.y=10

How 1 Billion People Are Coping With Death and Facebook

How 1 Billion People Are Coping 

With Death and Facebook

What's this?

“I think I’m going to go online,” said Cheryl, logging in to Facebook from her hospital bed.

She soon reconsidered, however. “I don’t know what to write: ‘Hey I almost died last night. What’s up with you guys?’”

Months later, Cheryl died from Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Her partner Kelli Dunham still cherishes funny memories like this one. “She was kind of a smart ass,” Dunham tells Mashable.

The two represent a phenomenon occurring the world over: Facebook after death. Couples, families, colleagues and friends are not only coping with losing loved ones, but also interacting with the Facebook profiles they leave behind.

The situation surfaces a multitude of questions and concerns. What happens to a Facebook profile after death? How do people interact with a dead user? Should loved ones be able to access a dead user’s profile at all? What is acceptable online grieving etiquette? And finally, what has grief become in the age of social media?

As of 2012, 30 million people who maintained Facebook accounts have died, according to a report by The Huffington Post. Some studies approximate that nearly 3 million users have died in 2012 alone; 580,000 in the U.S.

What Happens After We Die?

 

So what happens to all those suddenly abandoned profiles? Their fate could go one of four ways:

• The profile remains untouched, unaccessed, unreported and therefore open to everyday wall posts, photo tags, status mentions and Facebook ads. In other words, business as usual.

 

• A family member or close friend may choose to report a death to Facebook. Upon receipt of proof of death, such as a death certificate or local obituary, Facebook will switch the dead user’s timeline to a “memorial page.”

 

•  A close family member may petition Facebook to deactivate a dead user’s account.

 

 

• Users may gain access to a dead user’s profile in one of two ways: either through knowledge of the dead user’s password, a practice against Facebook’s terms of service, or through a court subpoena. However, per Facebook’s privacy policy and strict state law, courts rarely grant outside access to said social data. More on that later.

 

 

• Facebook’s official policy for handling user deaths is the memorial page. In 2009, the social network began switching dead users’ profiles to memorial statuses, should the deceased user’s friends or family request the change.

 

• Those friends may interact with the memorial page similarly as they would an active profile. They can post condolences and share memories on his or her timeline; they can view pictures and interact with past posts.

However, Facebook removes a host of other capabilities from memorialized pages. For instance, the profile is no longer accessible via public search, available only to existing Facebook friends. The page will not appear within Facebook “Suggestions.” In other words, the algorithm won’t suggest that you “reconnect with” a dead user whose page has been memorialized. Users won’t be able to tag a memorialized Facebook user in future posts or photos, or message that person at all. All automated app activity (e.g., Daily Horoscope) associated with a memorialized Facebook page ceases. Finally, Facebook reserves the right to delete status updates of a sensitive nature. For instance, if a user who committed suicide posted a photo of a gun to his head, Facebook would likely deem the content inappropriate and remove.

“Memorialization allows friends and family to post remembrances and honor a deceased user’s memory, while protecting the account and respecting the privacy of the deceased,” Facebook spokesman Andrew Noyes tells Mashable. “Also, we do honor requests from close family members to deactivate the account, which removes the profile and associated information from the site.”

Interfacing With the Dead

 But most users don’t raise a Facebook flag at all, choosing instead to peruse and interact with a person’s regular Facebook presence even after his or her demise. And they have all kinds of reasons to keep it that way.

Scott Millin lost his 45-year-old sister Nanci to breast cancer in December 2011. As her caregiver and estate trustee, Millin made practical arrangements before, during and after her death.

“My job was now to dismantle and disperse what was remaining from Nanci’s life,” says Millin. “Canceling her phone service, credit cards, trash service and email account were logical conclusions and decisions… The one thing I struggled what to do with [was] her Facebook page.”

He not only saw Nanci’s timeline as a testament to her accomplishments and memories, but as a curated tome of experiences she had chosen to share from her otherwise private life.

“I think Nanci’s Facebook page is a virtual cemetery of sorts for me, as well as for her friends and family,” he says. “Only we don’t have to navigate winding roads and marble headstones to get there. Instead, we just click from any device and see her, remember her, leave messages, and smile or cry at what was and what has become.”

For many, Facebook has become a highly accessible (even mobile) vehicle for grieving and, ultimately, catharsis.

For many, Facebook has become a highly accessible (even mobile) vehicle for grieving and, ultimately, catharsis.

Kristen Brown met well-respected musician Damien “Khamelien” Rahim through mutual friend Chris Kirkpatrick. Over the years, Brown and Rahim became close; the latter even wrote and produced the theme song for her nine-year-old son’s YouTube storyboard (below).

In September 2012, however, Rahim was robbed and murdered in an Orlando, Fla. parking lot. Since his Facebook was not memorialized, Rahim’s friends still received notifications from his Facebook events many days after his death.

After two months had passed, Brown showed a friend the storyboard, bursting into tears upon hearing Brown’s voice. She had to leave the room to compose herself. “That night I messaged Damien’s still active profile on Facebook,” she says. “It gave me comfort to be able to say what I needed to, even though he would never know.”

“Facebook very much helped in my time of grieving by making it so easy to connect with Damien’s family and other friends,” says Brown. “We bonded and shared our grief… It helped my kids grieve, as well.”

For others, reminders on social media of a loved one’s death can be more painful than helpful. If a dead user’s timeline sits un-memorialized, that profile can appear in Facebook Suggestions, such as the “People You May Know” sidebar on the homepage. Their birthdays reappear year after year in the news feed sidebar, prompting well-wishes from individuals unaware of the death. Many profiles continue to surface in Sponsored Stories, which promote users’ activity and likes from months and years past (e.g., “Kevin likes Wal-Mart”).

On the birthday following Cheryl’s death, Dunham noticed a flood of wishes on her partner’s timeline. But rather than scrolling through a stream of condolences, Dunham encountered what she initially interpreted as insensitivity.

“[People] wrote birthday wishes that made it clear that they had no idea she was dead. Stupid stuff like ‘Have a good time on your birthday, Cheryl. You only live once.’ Really,” she says. “I started responding to all these posts with just, ‘She’s dead,’ but since Cheryl had over a thousand Facebook friends, this was not really a very good use of time. I also probably hurt some people’s feelings.”

Excerpt from 

http://www.cuhea.com/2013/02/15/how-1-billion-people-are-coping-with-death-and-facebook/

Learning to Grieve on Social Media

Learning to Grieve on Social Media

Source: Mashable.com

Whether publicly or via intimate messages, people’s Facebook interactions with the dead mimic the grieving rituals we’ve held throughout time.

In Mexico, families honor their departed ancestors by leaving marigolds, baked goods and favorite possessions of the dead on altars. Similar to this Dia de los Muertos, Facebook users share cherished memories and stories, post favorite photos, inside jokes and “gifts” on their late loved ones’ Facebook timelines.

“People have built cemeteries and monuments in remembrance for as long as we’ve existed. Now those memories are digital,” says Margaret Carpo. Her friend died in a car accident in the Philippines in 2009, but her family continues to keep her Facebook Timeline active.

Western society especially presumes that individuals can overcome grief by emotionally detaching themselves from the deceased, says cyberanthropology expert Michaelanne Dye. “However, in the past 20 years, researchers have begun to explore the healthy benefits of maintaining a tie to the deceased… Considering this, Facebook appears to be a natural way for people to work through grief over the loss of a loved one.”

Dye also points to an evolving practice of identity construction, which makes dealing with grief in the Facebook era all that more nuanced. Today, identities are co-constructed through social media interactions. “Therefore, the deceased’s online identity not only continues in the virtual space; it can also evolve and adapt as others continue to interact with the dead person’s profile,” says Dye.

Some of those interactions, however, infuriated Dunham as she returned to interact with her dead partner’s Facebook profile. She diagnosed some of Cheryl’s Facebook friends with what she calls “social necrophilia,” the eager scramble to prove one maintained a close connection with the deceased.

“Everyone always wants to pretend they knew the dead person better than they do,” says Dunham. “For example, one person wrote, ‘You’re drinking champagne in heaven with my grandfather right now.’ This was ludicrous: Cheryl was a staunch atheist and she had 10 years sober, which was something she wrote about a lot.”

Andrew Ross lost his wife Debra to cancer two years and eight months ago. He feels that Debra’s Facebook friends seem detached from sincere grief.

“Most Facebook friends are pretty shallow,” he says. “There is not the depth of true emotions such as one would get in a real relationship. A lot of people respond in an overly emotional manner that seems to play on showing others how deeply they feel, whether it is true or not. It mostly strikes me as false and unpleasant. I got no comfort from the experience.”

Ross has mixed feelings about maintaining Debra’s Facebook profile and permanently deleting her presence there altogether. “At some point I feel her page should be deleted permanently. She is gone and it should be too,” he says.

Social media etiquette surrounding death is a delicate and highly subjective construct. What one person views as good judgment could translate as incredibly poor taste or downright offensive to others.

Julie Spira authored The Rules of Netiquette: How to Mind Your Digital Manners, wherein she talks about how to approach the “social media obituary.” In an email interview with Mashable, she praises people who honor the dead by celebrating that person’s memories and accomplishments on Facebook. However, she has also encountered instances she believes exemplify shockingly poor taste: “When a woman posted a photo of her newly deceased husband just prior to the ambulance arriving to take him to the morgue. It was grotesque and made many people uncomfortable.”

By this point, many people have learned that their friends and family have very different ideas of what constitutes “normal” grieving — especially when someone takes his or her grief public on social networks.

For many, grieving through social media is more comfortable than real-life interactions, which is why some people encounter what they translate as odd or callous behavior from fellow users. Dye adds, “Facebook provides a way for people to grieve publicly and receive feedback and support from others, while not forcing them to endure these painful interactions face-to-face, which, for some, might be an easier and healthier way for them to work through their grief.

“In the physical world, methods of mourning vary across cultures, as well as among individuals within the same culture. This also holds true in the online world.”

Grief therapist Lisa Leonard adds that grief varies wildly for each individual, and that it usually doesn’t progress orderly, like steps in a staircase. That being said, she can clearly identify the stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance) in her friends’ Facebook behavior.

But Leonard believes that social media can actually ease the process for some. “Being able to access the lost one’s profile after death is beneficial,” she says. “It allows a connection to others who loved him or her, a source of memories and humor to share and an opportunity to say ‘goodbye’ or ‘I’m missing you’ in a way that can soften the blow and move the healing along.”

Sharing from Connecting Directors.com

http://connectingdirectors.com/articles/38770-learning-to-grieve-on-social-media?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter