Free printable · settling an estate
Free First Two Weeks After a Death Checklist
Somebody has died and a great deal has landed on you at once. Almost none of it has to happen today. This free printable is the first two weeks' worth and nothing beyond it: the fifteen things that genuinely need doing now, the eight organizations where waiting actually costs something, and the documents to gather into one place. Every line says why it matters, because doing a thing you do not understand is exhausting and doing it twice is worse.
Take it with you — free, no signup
Direct download. No email, no account — just the files.
What it does
- Lists the fifteen things that need doing in the first two weeks — securing the house, finding the original will, ordering certified death certificates, arranging care for pets — each with the reason it matters, and a box to tick.
- Says plainly what can wait, which is most of it: you do not have to open the estate this week, you do not have to pay anyone's bills out of your own money, and you do not have to decide who gets what.
- Names the eight organizations where waiting actually costs something — a benefit that has to be repaid, coverage that lapses on an empty house, a credit file nobody is watching — with what each one will ask you for, and which of them will want letters the court has not issued yet.
- Tells you how many certified death certificates to order, which is more than most people expect: many organizations keep the copy you give them.
- Gives you a twelve-row document-gathering page with a Where yours is column to fill in by hand, including the difference between an original will and a copy of one, which courts treat very differently.
- Ends with a map of what comes after the first two weeks — the five stages that follow, and roughly when each tends to happen — so you know what you are walking into.
- Stores nothing. It is a printable sheet: no email, no signup, and it asks you to write down where a document lives, never a Social Security number, a tax ID, an account number or a password.
Related reading
Own it, don't rent it
Want the whole job dated, not just the first two weeks?
This checklist stops at two weeks on purpose. What follows is a months-long job of a different kind — dated, sequential, and full of decisions that depend on each other. The Executor's Estate Settlement Records & Task Binder turns it into a plan: put the date of death in one cell and sixty executor tasks lay themselves out — fifty-eight with a target date that counts down and flags what is past due, and two that recur. Pick how an asset is titled and it tells you the route that titling usually takes: probate, non-probate, or one to put to the attorney — the thing first-time executors most often get wrong. Every creditor claim gets an answer-by date, the cash ledger becomes the accounting the court will want, and it works out what each beneficiary is actually owed. Thirteen connected tabs in Excel, Google Sheets, or LibreOffice, plus four guides.
A one-time purchase you keep and own — the owned binder between a shoebox of paperwork and a rented estate app, for a job that outlasts most apps.
A checklist — not legal, tax, or financial advice. Ardent Workshop is not a law firm, not a tax adviser, and not affiliated with any court or government agency. Probate is state law and differs from one state to the next, so nothing here is a deadline and nothing here is a rule for your estate — it is a plain-language list of what generally needs doing first, meant to tell you which questions to ask. Verify anything that matters with an attorney, an accountant, and your probate court. Free to use; please don't resell or redistribute.