A Death Thread

icarusza said:
I thought that was illegal?
Click to expand...
My dad passed away in November, so I have a rather current experience on this. His bank accounts were only frozen this week, because the attorneys handling his deceased estate had to wait for the Letters of Executorship nominating them to action this (and then took their sweet time). This is simpler, as my mom is the sole heir and there is no dispute on that, but the problem we experienced is that debit orders and things need to remain provided for if they cannot be changed to another account (which some cannot, due to them being in his name), so there was monthly maintenance to the accounts, ensuring that there is enough money for the payments, but not too much money for when it gets frozen, etc. Also, life insurance pays to the deceased estate account (and cannot be allocated against the existing bond, to save on accruing interest charges). It is an admin schlep.
 
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Support is so important, those left behind can have a terrible emotional ordeal as well.

Not sure I agree with the Psychological route, it's long and too impersonal from what I've seen although the drugs may be needed.

If no close family / friends, Hospice is great. Maybe some sort of club?
 
Do your research if you're making a video of the funeral:

We used to use a company who arranges funerals and offer a one hour funeral video as an optional extra. The older videos are great but my sister's video from 2022 is a disaster.

They had one fixed camera in front mounted on a tripod with a gormless guy standing gazing into space next to it. He never once changed the angle and I don't think he looked through the lens. There was a second similar camera at the back. The arsehole doing the music kept the volume so low we were shouting at him to turn it up and he got irritated. Kept scanning the buttons because he probably didn't know how to use the machine.

The first 20 minutes of video we paid for is candles flickering ( :ROFL: :ROFL::ROFL:), some footage is of the back of the speech maker's head, one of the dead lady's children made an emotional speech and the microphone is centred RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE of her face (:ROFL::ROFL::ROFL:) only elevator music thoughout (claiming they're not allowed to use what was recorded at the funeral). Absolute bloody rip-off :mad:.

Be wary of who you select.

P.S. We specified nothing religious but got a minister who did nothing but prosthelytise and kept referring to the deceased (my sister) as he :ROFL::ROFL:.
 
Just have a funeral plan, we had family that past and surviving members didn't had enough money to put their loved one to rest. It was a terrible situation no one wants and yea it is harsh as it can cost upwards of R14k It is not cheap. I told my family just to dump my ass in the ocean and let the Sarks deal with me.

But apparently it is not legal and stuff so I went and got a cheap funeral plan for just under or over R100 I think. It is worth it and if you know you have family that can't afford it just ask them to take one out and you pay for it. I mean it cost less then a pack of condoms and you save yourself having to go to the bank and borrow money or max out your credit card.
 
One thing that isn't common knowledge is that estates get dealt with very differently depending on value.

If possible, drop the value of assets in an Estate to under R250k - at that point you can get a representative appointed instead of an executor and the amount of admin and hoops to jump through drops considerably.

Wish I'd known this two weeks ago...
 
Sjoe guys. Ok where to start.

Having lost my sister in 2009, a car accident,
My mother in 2022, overnight went into the theater for a blood clot and the meds they gave her to thin her blood caused bleeding in the brain the pressure on her brain stem caused her to be basically brain-dead, so we had to switch off the machines,
And my father in 2024, suicide, he suffered from severe depression and could not live without my mother anymore.

I am the one picking up the pieces.
I transferred a couple of bar the night he passed away to my accounts. It's still there. The estate practitioners, Capital Legacy, will need the transaction history in order to finalize the L&D account and to pay fscking SARS their last couple of bar. *****.

His accounts were only frozen after a couple of months. His will was in place. I knew of everything and where he has what. We had the discussion multiple times during the last year. I had access to his bank accounts and all the investment portfolios, but he left me a printout on his desk with his passwords etc. And he left me a letter.

You should talk about these things. The worst thing you can do is to let those that are left behind try and build puzzles of your affairs.

Have a life file. That contains everything.

The struggle is real.
 
Superjakes said:
My dad passed away in November, so I have a rather current experience on this. His bank accounts were only frozen this week, because the attorneys handling his deceased estate had to wait for the Letters of Executorship nominating them to action this (and then took their sweet time). This is simpler, as my mom is the sole heir and there is no dispute on that, but the problem we experienced is that debit orders and things need to remain provided for if they cannot be changed to another account (which some cannot, due to them being in his name), so there was monthly maintenance to the accounts, ensuring that there is enough money for the payments, but not too much money for when it gets frozen, etc. Also, life insurance pays to the deceased estate account (and cannot be allocated against the existing bond, to save on accruing interest charges). It is an admin schlep.
Click to expand...
Does life insurance not pay to the nominated beneficiary account?
 
W@P said:
Sjoe guys. Ok where to start.

Having lost my sister in 2009, a car accident,
My mother in 2022, overnight went into the theater for a blood clot and the meds they gave her to thin her blood caused bleeding in the brain the pressure on her brain stem caused her to be basically brain-dead, so we had to switch off the machines,
And my father in 2024, suicide, he suffered from severe depression and could not live without my mother anymore.

I am the one picking up the pieces.
I transferred a couple of bar the night he passed away to my accounts. It's still there. The estate practitioners, Capital Legacy, will need the transaction history in order to finalize the L&D account and to pay fscking SARS their last couple of bar. *****.

His accounts were only frozen after a couple of months. His will was in place. I knew of everything and where he has what. We had the discussion multiple times during the last year. I had access to his bank accounts and all the investment portfolios, but he left me a printout on his desk with his passwords etc. And he left me a letter.

You should talk about these things. The worst thing you can do is to let those that are left behind try and build puzzles of your affairs.

Have a life file. That contains everything.

The struggle is real.
Click to expand...

Is the estate wound up yet?
 
I went to traffic department and home affairs today. Talk about near-death experience.
 
maumau said:
Is the estate wound up yet?
Click to expand...
No not yet. And honestly, I am not sure where we are. I would say maybe 50%.

The things that have been finalized and are done:

  • His RA has been converted to an LA in my name, transferred to 10X, and is active.
  • His 2 x LAs that he had have been transferred to my name at 10X and are active.
  • There is 1 more LA that is in the process of being transferred to my name at 10X.
  • His Life Insurance paid out to me. After kicking up a storm at Discovery. So that is done.
  • 2 x Property sales out of the estate are 90% done. I had to give motivations as to why they were being sold at a lower price than what we bought them for.
    • The first one we paid too much for when we bought it. And the buyers in that price range are few.
    • For the second one we also paid a bit too much and the prospective buyers are few.
  • There are about 10 vehicles/trailers that need to be transferred to my name, not done yet.
  • His personal investment portfolio, I assume, still needs to be converted to cash. So sell all shares, etc, and be paid into his estate's account.
  • Thank fsck he had none of the companies in his personal name. They all belong 100% to the family trust. So they carry on as normal. I have just been appointed as director.
  • One fsckup, the family trust's FNB business bank account was linked to his personal FNB profile. So they froze that account as well. I need the new updated Letter of Authority which states who the new trustees are from the master to create a new mandate with FNB before they can add that account to my FNB profile. I and all my offspring are the sole beneficiaries of the trust.
  • I now "service" all the running monthly expenses out of my pocket instead of the trust. I keep records and when I have access to those accounts again I will do a recon and pay myself back to balance what the trust owes me for keeping everything afloat during this time.
  • I managed to get the income that the trust generates through the letting of property to be paid to my accounts, so there is at least that income I have access to to service those commitments.
That's about it off the top of my head at this stage. Oh and together with all of the above one still has to grief. Not easy.
 
Some tips and things to keep in mind.

  1. Pull bank statements asap from the deceased's accounts as far back as you can, in .csv format if possible so you can play with the data in Excel/Google Sheets. PDF is also fine. Just pull as many bank statements across all accounts as possible.
  2. If you still did transactions from the deceased's accounts after his/her death keep statements of all of this while you still have access to the accounts.
  3. Export the deceased's beneficiaries from his banking profiles in .csv or PDF format. This is gold when something pops up at a later stage.
  4. If you inherit a property from the deceased and do not intend to keep it, sell it out of the estate asap. This will then negate the transfer costs that the estate has to pay for transferring the property to your name. In turn, this keeps more liquidity available when it is time to pay SARS estate duty.
  5. Make sure your beneficiaries are set and good with all your investments and policies. So it clearly states who they are on each investment, etc.
  6. In my case I changed all of my stuff now that the family trust is the only beneficiary of all the investments and portfolios I have in my personal name.
  7. This one is easier said than done. But you should have as little as possible to your name, fokkol actually. So when your time comes to leave this world, SARS can go and fsck themselves crying in a corner about all the estate duty they missed out on.
  8. We make use of Capital Legacy for the safekeeping of our wills together with the protection plan policy that covers a ton off costs associated with dying. We had first-hand experience when my mother passed away and now I am dealing with them wrt my father's estate. They handle everything.
  9. If you take out the Capital Legacy Plan make sure to indicate the beneficiary for the immediate liquidity payout after a death. My father slipped on this one and never changed it from my mother to me. Thus R180k was paid to his estate instead of me. Bummer.
  10. If you can carry the costs, switch all short-term insurance over to your name to prevent ongoing debit orders from going off the deceased bank accounts. Just now they are frozen and you "fall behind" on certain things and they lodge a claim against the estate that could drag things out and also could cause issues if you need to claim anything.
  11. Monitor the deceased's email client daily. I have a 49" ultra-wide screen with my own Chrome profile with Gmail open on one side and my father's Chrome profile with his Gmail open on the other side. It's like living 2 lives at the same time. You pick up on things that would have slipped through.
  12. Make a ton of certified copies of everything, id's, driving licenses, gun licenses, death certificates, etc. INCLUDING YOUR OWN ID, etc. They will "expire" and then you make new ones again after 3 months. There is always something popping up that requires one of these.
  13. I have a scanner app on my phone. Fscking SCAN EVERYTHING. You will need it. It just saves time when the need arises for some or other document.
  14. Again SCAN EVERYTHING. All the claims you lodge wrt to life insurance and policies, etc. Save the blank copies digitally and save the signed and completed copies digitally.
  15. Create a boedel or estate folder on your PC or whatever in your Google Drive and store EVERYTHING there. You will lose track of where you saved or stored which documents, etc.
  16. Create a spreadsheet that contains all relevant info that relates to the person who passed away. Amounts, DATES, keep timeframes, bank balances at the time of death, the list is endless. Once you start with such a sheet you will quickly realize what info is of importance and what not. JUST DO IT. You will forget things and you will find yourself in a situation where someone from somewhere calls you enquiring about a certain issue and having to filter through emails and kak is frustrating.
  17. KEEP YOUR HEAD DOWN AND FOCUS, don't let anything slide or take kak from anyone.
  18. Scan and make copies of ALL police documents and docs relating to the death itself.
  19. Cancel any Netflix or any other SUBS ASAP.
  20. There may be an instance where you have to send a mail requesting the cancellation of something or what ever. Send the mail from the deceased as if it were him or her sending it. It just moves things along quickly. The moment you mention that the person in question has passed away they throw the book out the window and say whooaaa stop right there. Then you have to follow bullshiit procedures en kak. Just impersonate the deceased, no one will know.
  21. Once you mention that person X is dead, the process of anything changes. Don't let anyone know he/she is dead until completely necessary.
  22. In my case I have the same exact names as my father. So when they did security checks and asked me my name, I did not lie. When asked for ID number I gave them the ID number in question. The robots at the call centers never picked up that I sound like a 38-year-old instead of a 60-something-year-old. Whatever I don't care if I mislead someone here or there. I got done what needed to be done. And the world is still fine after that. The person in question is dead, wtf are they gonna do?
  23. Never mention off the bat that person x had passed away, I will mention this again.
  24. Don't make use of shared bank accounts, just don't. There is no need in today's age where one needs to share a bank account.
I will contribute more when I think of something else.
 
rh1 said:
Does life insurance not pay to the nominated beneficiary account?
Click to expand...
He did not nominate a beneficiary. The claim started as a dread disease claim, which the oncologist was reluctant to support (stage 4 lymphoma). When it deteriorated, we eventually got the required medical report, but he passed before it could get paid out. This turned it into a death claim, which needs to be accompanied by an executors appointment letter and a section to be completed by the executor. This claim was eventually submitted on the 21st of January and we are still waiting for the payout.

Funeral policy payouts seem to be very quick, though.
 
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Created the thread and never got back to it. Eish.

A few things over the last few years.

1. If you have kids, either go the Capital Legacy route for the Trust or start one up now. Guardian fund is a bit of a **** show.
2. Just get funeral cover (it's like R100) AND possibly cheap cover at a mortuary like Avbob. It will make your life infinetly easier.
3. Get everyone to have a Death File. Who I pay/owe. Banking specifics and anything else like Phone Pins I would need to be aware off.
4. Get life insurance, more so if you have kids OR you are the bread winner. Estates take time and your family will need to manage all those costs in between. It is not fun and thankfully the life insurance beneficiaries can specific (unless you are hiding kids etc) so it doesn't need to go through the estate.
5. If your parents are old; have the convo with them now and move cars + property over now. It will make your life easier.
6. Be patient and consider therapy.

All those off the top of my head. Still busy with my own estate issues :D But yeah. Some smaller learnings so far.

Places I trust(*) since they paid out with no issues: Standard Bank, Old Mutual, Hollard, Avbob and Liberty.

3SixtyLife was a bit of a pain. Cousin had some issues with Capitec but they did pay eventually.
 
Strongly advise you to always have separate wills. Joint Wills are a PITA!

Also, if one of the spouses has died, then I would strongly advise the other spouse to update their will as soon as possible (especially if it is a joint will). There are several reasons for this...

1) In the case of a joint will, the original will is often given to the Master of the High Court, and unless you have multiple copies, it makes it difficult to submit the same will for the other spouse. This is why you should update it as soon as possible.

2) Where one spouse has suddenly inherited an entire estate from their deceased spouse (even before the process is completely wound up) they now need to specify again what their intentions are. If they relied on the previous will, it most likely states that the beneficiary is their spouse. Updating the will gives them chance to now specify a new beneficiary.

3) Fate has a way of taking the remaining spouse fairly quick after the first spouse has died so getting the will updated immediately just prepares for that eventuality and gets it out of the way. It also makes sure the family knows where the new will is located.
 
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