Successor Trustee needs to act on a matter prior to certified death certificate being available in a week or two. Seems like I've heard of provisional death certificate being available from funeral directors, which can be useful when coupled with the successor accepting trustee role, and an updated trustee cert.

Anyone been down this path, or know of other means to act prior to certified death certificate being available?

It's a little late but a joint account solves this problem.

This was a widow, so no spouse. We had TODs with kids, to free up cash outside of trust structure, but those aren't available until official death cert. The kids have plenty of money, but would prefer not to use their own resources to cover expenses for a week or so before getting reimbursed by estate/trusts later.

Worst case, is not bad and only delays a thank you bonus to live-in care givers by a week or two.

Even so, there has to be a path for scenarios where more swift action is truly needed.

Good luck, Costanza

Got it done. In case anyone else would benefit, here is what was needed:

From Funeral Home/Director:

• Executed Facts of Death Verification as they will appear on the Certificate of Death.
• Others included but may not have been needed 1) Authorization for cremation and disposition 2) Authorization to embalm at funeral establishment or other location 3) FTC Disclosure-disclaimer form 4) Funeral purchase agreement

From attorney:

• Letter of acceptance signed/notarized by successor trustee
• New Trustee Cert

There was also one institution specific form related to trustee cert.

I don't think anything past the Facts of Death Verification would have been needed but included the others given a clear exception to policies was being made.

This isn't something I think could be pulled off all the time, or even frequently. Facts/circumstances and scale of relationship helped make it happen.

Hope that helps someone someday!

I think the executor was looking to pay funeral expenses. In any event my executor knows to pay for early expenses with a single credit card and reimburse when able. I've done this both as a banker (extended the credit limit on a card) and as an executor.

To be clear, the widow could have been on a joint account with one or any number of her kids.

The widow was on a joint account with kids that had ample funding for final expenses and then some. Despite planning discussion around thee amount needed there, that account had unexpected substantial expense when the family decided to pay sizable bonuses to live-in caregivers that had been with the family for the better part of a decade. The bonus itself wasn't a surprise, but the amount and timing were. Had they waited a week or two for that, it would have been a non-issue. However they insisted on paying the caregivers the bonus immediately, which necessitated additional funding as soon as it could happen.

I advised the family to wait to pay that bonus, they did it anyway. So, was left scrambling a bit for a solution and was fortunate to have a fairly easy fix. Would never have been an issue if that bonus simply was paid after certified death cert was received.

It is not typical to have this kind of payment, at least not at this scale, so it was IMO unusual. Certainly beyond the ability to get a credit card limit extension, like was wisely mentioned in another post.

Just curious, what was their reason for not waiting to pay that bonus?

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It is not typical to have this kind of payment, at least not at this scale, so it was IMO unusual.

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hmmmmm wonder if there is more to the story.

why such a large payout to live in care givers and why the need to rush!

Not at all suspicious!

Nothing crazy going on. Just family having appreciation and compassion for folks that are now out of a job. Fortunately, the family had the wealth to afford care like this, and then to be generous toward those that cared so well for the family.