What To Do When Someone Dies in Colorado is a free brochure available from the Colorado Bar Association which describes everything to consider in the hours and days following someone’s death in Colorado, prior to the Colorado probate and estate settlement process. Jim Foster and Colorado Probate Helpers can assist you with the Colorado estate settlement process and with all of your Colorado probate real estate needs.
So what actually happens when someone close to you dies and you’re the one in charge of everything from making funeral arrangements to probate and settlement of their estate?
Well, back in July of 2010, I was with my father when he peacefully passed away at the age of 86.
That moment not only began a very emotional period of mourning, but also a very long estate settlement journey for my mom and my brother & I that we had never experienced before.
The next several days was not only an emotional roller coaster, but there was a lot of hard work for each of us to perform.
None of us really knew what to do so we initially relied on the advice of the caregiver manager at my father’s end of life care facility, who met with us and asked us which mortuary we wanted her to contact and she informed us about all of the next steps going forward.
Had we not had this caregiver manager to meet with, we may have been more lost than we actually were, but looking back now, the Colorado Bar Association actually provides a free online brochure called “What To Do When Someone Dies” that would have been extremely helpful in those first hours & days. I’ll leave a link to it in the Description below.
So we began calling family members and friends to share the news and later that afternoon, we went to the mortuary to meet with the funeral director, and we planned my father’s funeral, wrote his obituary, learned about how many original copies of the death certificate we would need, and selected a date and time for the funeral and burial.
Over the next several days we went through old photographs to display at his funeral and put together a video celebration of his life.
We talked about what music to have at his service and who to ask to be the pallbearers and so forth.
A few days later at the end of the funeral, an Army soldier handed my mom the folded American flag that had draped my dad’s coffin, which was followed by a 21 gun salute and the playing of Taps.
It was at this point in the process, that it really began to sink in. . . that my dad, who I’d known my entire life and who raised me, and was always there for me. . . was gone. It was a very empty feeling.
My dad had grown up in the Great Depression prior to serving in the Army in World War II in the Pacific and again in the Korean War.
He’d acquired lots of stuff over the years and had a pickup, a car, an old ’55 Ford and 2 rental houses. . . one with a large storage pen out back full of stuff and a shed full of tools, equipment and things that were important to him. He wasn’t a hoarder, but he had lots of stuff.
It was pretty overwhelming dealing with all of the personal property, vehicles and rental properties, but together we worked our way through it.
There were some available funds that were used to fix up one of the rental homes and we sold it for top market value. . .
Then we took some of the proceeds and fixed up the other rental house and re-rented it at a higher rate, which became a big source of our mom’s monthly income and along with her social security and a small surviving spouse pension, goes towards her monthly costs at her assisted living facility.
Mom is now in her 90’s has a will naming my brother and I as co-executors with clear instructions to be followed to settle her estate when she passes, so there’ll be no confusion about carrying out her wishes and settling her estate.
Although I had been a licensed real estate broker in Colorado for almost 20 years at that time and had assisted many families going through the probate and estate settlement process before, it was shortly after my father’s funeral that I decided to really specialize in, and solely focus on helping families navigate the probate and estate settlement process.
Not just by helping them with selling a piece of real estate, but by putting together a team of professionals to assist with every part of the probate process from what to do when someone dies, to providing court information, attorney referrals, household liquidation and estate sale services to property maintenance and repairs, to full service real estate marketing and representation to get the property sold, so the proceeds can be dispersed to the rightful heirs.
This is how I came to find my true passion as a professional, and I love knowing that I’ve helped a family through this difficult process!
Please feel free to leave a comment below and let me know what questions you may have and what probate issues you’re struggling with and I’ll do my best to answer your questions and provide some recommendations.
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Brochure: What to do when someone dies in Colorado
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