Hello wise mumsnetters, I wonder if anyone can help me.
My father died a few weeks ago. I won't go into details but we had a troubled relationship and he finally died after a long battle with alcohol addiction.
The circumstances as I understand them are this.
Just over two years ago he had a mild stroke, from which he seemed to make a full recovery. He then began drinking again despite the apparent wake up call.
In November of last year he had a funny turn and was pronounced fit after examination by a paramedic after fainting. It was put down to being too warm and hungover.
Two days later he fell down the stairs. It's unclear if this was the cause or result of a fairly major bleed on the brain. He underwent emergency brain surgery and was kept in a medically induced coma for a few days.
Following this he made a miraculous recovery, was transferred to a rehabilitation centre and came home in march of this year.
I last spoke to him a few days before easter when he was slurring and had lost his brain to mouth filter. At the time I was almost 38 weeks pregnant so asked if he was still keeping his appointments as he was meant to see his GP every week for a medicine review. A few days after this call he locked his front door and stopped answering his phone. He left his keys in the door so that his friend who had been checking on him couldn't gain access. He said he didn't want or need any help.
He died on May 11th, home alone. He was found by a friend the day after when he went up, didn't get a response at all and couldn't get in. The police broke the door down and he was pronunced dead at the scene.
The post mortem was inconclusive and we're currently waiting for a second round of test results from his heart, lungs and liver. We do have an interim death certificate which we've used to alert the banks, gas board etc, but we can't register his death until we're given the official death certificate. We've got about four weeks left until we can expect these next set of results.
If these results cannot determine natural causes we'll have to attend an inquest in August.
At first we thought he hadn't written a will, the friend who found him told me he had consistently refused to write one as everyone knew everything would go to me as I'm an only child. We've since found one he wrote when married to my mother. They're now divorced but I am named as a second beneficiary in the case of my mother being unable to inherit. Someone has told me that in the case of divorce the spouse is automatically disinherited.
Sorry this is so long, it became a bit of a way to get my head straight. My questions are, what do I need to do now? We've held the funeral so it's time to start dealing with the heavy stuff.
We need to sell his house and close and empty all his accounts, pay his gas bill, pay off his mortgage etc.