In this family tree, who is next of kin? Funeral/inheritance related

[Mykittensmittens]

A relative died last night. Her parents are deceased and she had no children.

For ease I have drawn a diagram (apologies, it’s awful) but it’s easier to show it than explain it.

The person who has died (pink box) has two aunts, both were married. Aunt B has died and leaves a husband still alive and an adult child who has no children. Aunt C is alive, her husband deceased, and she is very elderly and has a POA in place managed by her two children, one of which is an adult with no children. These people are the deceaseds cousins along with the child of Aunt B.

The husband of Aunt B doesn’t feel close enough or involved enough to attend to matters.

Aunt C is not capable.

For transparency, I am on the diagram with a star. The crossed out boxes are deceased relatives. My Mum and her Brother have a lot on their plates dealing with my Grandmother (Aunt C).

To the best of our knowledge, there is no funeral plan, no will. She lived 250 miles from any of the above relations so it’s not an easy job.

So, who is responsible for checking her things, collecting her belongings from hospital for example, looking in her house for paperwork just in case and making sure the house is secure?

Technically we don’t know who her next of kin is? And without a will, who are her beneficiaries in this arrangement?

Who pays for and arranges her funeral?

I’m going to start a shift at work in a bit but will check for any replies later, thank you.

It's probably going to be tricky splitting the estate with B's disabled child. Do you know whether he has full capacity or if anyone else has power of attorney for him? You'll need to be really scrupulously ultra fair and take notes of absolutely everything that's done, and I'd strongly suggest employing a solicitor.

Thanks @CredibilityProblem we will engage a solicitor asap, but I think we can wait till Friday to look in the house in case she’s left any kind of indication or instructions?

B's child inherits B's share. My DH did in the same circumstances.

Did she die in hospital? They would have details of her nominated next of kin. If she was intestate, the diving the estate is clear and some PPs have this correct.

The death needs to be registered within five days, so by Sunday as it's not done on a working week. If you are going to be the responsible person, you need to get the paperwork from the hospital and make an appointment with the registrar. Realistically you only have tomorrow and Friday to do that.

If there's no aunts alive with capacity, the next generation down are jointly responsible. Her estate pays for the costs and you can appoint a solicitor to deal with her affairs. If there's no money and none of you are willing to get involved then the council will make the arrangements

Any inheritance will be split equally between the 3 aunts with the money passing to the next generation if they have died (it's split equally among that generation etc etc

For clarity, assuming the deceased was intestate, if C was dead, B's child would inherit half the estate with the other half being split between B's children. As things stand, it will be split between B's child and C.

Oh crap in that case! No one can get there till Friday - impossible for reasons I won’t bore with but honestly just impossible. My intention is to take my Mother Friday.

She died in hospital yes.

so I’m guessing we also need to go to the hospital, collect the papers and make an appt for Friday as well as look for the will. Jeez.

her NoK given at the hospital was a local friend. That was simply as she was geographically near - they are not close in any way, the NoK wants to stand back from any responsibility as she doesn’t feel she knows the deceased well enough for that.

I don't think it actually matters who registers the death as long as they know her full name and DOB etc. Then someone can instruct a solicitor to take over the whole thing. Not entirely sure, but you probably don't have to be next of kin to do either of those things.

@Mykittensmittens Yes. You'll need to get the paperwork from the hospital. It's signed by the doctor who certified death. If she's to be cremated, there's an extra form too. You'll need to phone the hospital and arrange to collect on Friday and ring the nearest register office to the hospital.

It would be a good idea to phone a funeral director too to make an appointment. I've just done all this and didn't realise about registering the death. I managed to get the last possible day. My friend had to get an extension of time and travel to the other side of the county as the local office was fully booked. I understand that's unusual though.

We were going down the intestacy route, but the will has turned up in an unexpected place which has sorted out a family row.

You can register the death at a registry office local to you - I'm not sure how you get the paperwork from the hospital but I know it's possible.

@takeitandleaveit thanks - but if we don’t have any of her other contacts locally (we need an address book, which we hope is also at the house) and the NoK doesn’t want to ‘get involved’ then I think we’ll have to do it, unless I can pay for someone to do it!

and we can’t instruct a solicitor surely, until we’ve checked her papers to see if she already has one, or has a funeral plan etc?

we’ll just have to tackle all of it Friday I think

I'm not sure as we had to take so much ID. Marriage certificate, utility bills, driving license or passport and were grilled as to whether we had the right to register the death. We also had the two certificates from the hospital which were only released to the legal NOK.

Since COVID, the hospitals or coroner if inquest was done now send the paperwork digitally to the local registrar and the death is usually automatically registered. All you do is call to confirm if the death is registered and if you want you can order death certificates over the phone or go to the registrars website and order them online.

At least that’s how it worked this past December when I lost a relative.

Hospitals were sending the paperwork digitally to the local registrar and probably still are. The death isn't registered automatically though. The registrar needs to speak to an 'informant' to gather certain information such as maiden name (if applicable), date and place of birth, occupation, address, details of informant etc. This was being done by telephone call but the registrars have gone back to having face to face meetings with the informant now.

"Did she die in hospital? They would have details of her nominated next of kin."

Can't you nominate anyone as your next of kin in hospital? Isn't it more like a person to contact in an emergency and doesn't have to be a blood relative or spouse?

"her NoK given at the hospital was a local friend."

Ah, cross posted.

In terms of practical stuff, in many ways the person to deal with it is whoever is in a position to do so. Difficult when there is real and family distance involved.

It sounds like much of it is falling to you to coordinate with your mother, and probably will continue to do so. Remember that at the very least funeral costs should come out of the estate and don't feel obliged to settle bills or debts "on her behalf" without advice. The nominated local friend may be willing and able to help if you make it clear you aren't going to "dump responsibility" on them but would appreciate local help with keeping an eye on the house for example.

I know when my uncle died, and his council house had to be cleared to a tight deadline, local friends and his ex-wife all helped my mother (who'd made it back from Australia barely in time to see him) and his son (who had ridiculously limited leave from his job in the US) deal with everything.

Years back, we had some distant relatives, a pair of sisters (one widowed young, neither had any children), who lived in the same city as us, other relatives on that side were all hundreds of miles away. One became a recluse and pushed away even her sister; when she was found dead there was a lot of work necessary to clear and clean her flat which my parents largely did. The other we stayed in contact with for several more years before she also pushed us away. Someone else was named as NOK in her last hospital admissions and dealt with most things, but my parents did speak up and ask for her address book so they could notify her correspondents. Mostly my parents were doing what they felt they ought to do, but the address book did put them in touch with some relatives who they were able to visit (and from whom they heard that it was not at all unreasonable for my father to be estranged from his mother as were they all too).

It sounds a tough situation for you. I hope you are able to "spread the load" and also take the time you need to fit in what needs to be done around your other responsibilities.

Your first priority is registering the death as you don't have long to do this and you will need the death certificate to start dealing with financial affairs anyway.

Any family member can register the death, so you just need to agree amongst you who will do this and then get on with it promptly. During covid they were doing this remotely so you may not have to travel up to the area to get the process started.