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What to do when someone dies in Florida: the family's checklist, in order
Nobody is ready for this, and the first days come with a list of calls and papers nobody warned you about. This page puts them in order: what has to happen today, what can wait two weeks, and what can wait months. Most of it is simpler than it looks, and a few things are urgent. Plain answers for Citrus, Hernando, and Pasco County.
One thing to know before the list. The papers your parent signed to let someone act for them, the power of attorney and the health care surrogate, stop working at the moment of death. From here on, the law decides who can sign, and for most families that means the surviving spouse, then the adult children, and eventually the probate court. That's why the will matters, and why the bank will say no to the person who's been paying the bills for years.
Every answer was checked against Florida law and the federal agencies involved. None of it is a recommendation for your own situation. Last reviewed: September 14, 2026.
The short version:
- What are the immediate things I should do after my parent dies? Call hospice or 911, call a funeral home, and find the will. If your parent was an organ donor on their license, that decision stands. Nothing else has to happen today.
- Does power of attorney end at death? Yes, the moment the person dies. The health care surrogate's role ends too. The person who held them can't sign, withdraw, or close anything anymore.
- How many death certificates do I need? Usually eight to twelve certified copies. Each account, policy, and agency that needs one keeps it. The first costs $5 from the state, each extra $4.
- Who notifies Social Security when someone dies? The funeral home almost always does. Any payment for the month of death has to go back, and a surviving spouse may be owed a one-time $255 and monthly survivor benefits.
- Do I have to pay my mom's debts? No, not from your own money. Her debts are paid from what she left, through probate, and if there isn't enough, they go unpaid. The exceptions are debts you co-signed or shared.
- Do I have to file the will? Yes. Whoever has the original has ten days from learning of the death to deposit it with the clerk of court in the county where your parent lived. Usually there's no fee.
The checklist
Print this section or keep it open. Everything on it is explained below.
| When | What | Who to call |
|---|---|---|
| Today | Get a legal pronouncement of death: hospice if they were on it, otherwise 911 | Hospice nurse or 911 |
| Choose a funeral home and ask them to order death certificates (ten is a common number) | Funeral home | |
| Find the original will, the deed, and the insurance policies | Family | |
| Secure the house, pets, and mail | Family | |
| First two weeks | Deposit the original will with the clerk of court (ten-day deadline) | County clerk of court |
| Confirm Social Security was told; return any payment for the month of death; ask about survivor benefits | 1-800-772-1213 | |
| If a veteran: report the death and ask about the burial allowance and Florida National Cemetery | VA, 1-800-827-1000 | |
| Notify life insurance, pensions, and annuities and start claims | Each company | |
| Mail a death certificate to one credit bureau to flag the credit file (it tells the other two) | Equifax, Experian, or TransUnion | |
| Tell the county property appraiser, and ask about the widow or widower exemption | Property appraiser | |
| First few months | Decide whether probate is needed and which kind; talk to a probate lawyer if anything was in your parent's name alone | Lawyer or Senior Legal Helpline |
| Transfer the car title | Tax collector | |
| Cancel subscriptions and memberships; forward the mail | Each company; post office | |
| File the final income tax return by April 15 of next year | Tax preparer |
The first day
What are the immediate things I should do after my parent dies?
Three things, and none of them is paperwork.
First, a legal pronouncement. If your parent was on hospice, call the hospice number and a nurse comes to the house. If not, call 911. Second, call a funeral home. They take care of moving your parent, and they'll ask you right away how many death certificates to order, which is covered below. Third, find the original will if there is one, along with the deed to the house and any life insurance policies. Those three papers answer most of what comes next.
If your parent registered as an organ donor on their driver license, that decision is theirs. Florida law says a family member or health care surrogate "may not modify, deny, or prevent a donor's wish" after death. The hospital or hospice will handle it.
Everything else on this page can wait. Take the day.
Does power of attorney end at death?
Yes. Florida law says a power of attorney "terminates when the principal dies." The health care surrogate's job, making medical decisions during your parent's life, is over too. Whoever held those papers has no authority to sign a check, withdraw money, or close an account from that moment on, and no special say over the funeral.
Families run into this at the bank. The daughter who's been paying the bills for three years under the power of attorney walks in with the same paper and is turned away, correctly. From now on, what your parent owned belongs to their estate, and only a personal representative appointed by the probate court, or a joint owner or named beneficiary, can touch it. The section on bank accounts below explains which is which.
Decisions about the funeral and the body follow a separate list in Florida law. If your parent wrote down their wishes, those come first. Otherwise the order is the surviving spouse, then an adult child, then a parent, then an adult brother or sister, then an adult grandchild, then a grandparent. The person who held the power of attorney is on that list only as a last resort, and the health care surrogate the same. So a spouse or adult child decides about the funeral, even if someone else was the agent for years.
Death certificates
How many death certificates do I need?
There's no rule, but eight to twelve certified copies covers most families, and ten is what funeral homes commonly suggest. You need one for each place that will keep it: every bank account in your parent's name alone, each life insurance policy, each pension or annuity, the VA if a veteran, the credit bureau, the property appraiser, the tax collector for the car, the probate court, and any brokerage or retirement account. Some of them return the copy, most don't.
The funeral home usually orders them for you at the same time it files the death record, which is the easiest route. If you need more later, you order from the Florida Department of Health's Bureau of Vital Statistics or the county health department. The state's fee is $5 for the first certified copy and $4 for each additional copy ordered at the same time. Ordering online through the state's contractor costs $22 for the first copy, so order by mail or in person if you can wait.
There are two versions. The one that shows the cause of death is confidential for fifty years and only goes to the spouse, a parent, an adult child, grandchild, or sibling, or someone who can show they have an interest in the estate, such as a named beneficiary. Insurance companies usually want that version. The plain version, without cause of death, is public and is enough for most other purposes.
The first two weeks
Who notifies Social Security when someone dies?
The funeral home, almost always. Social Security's own site says so: "A funeral home will usually tell us when someone dies, so you may not need to report a death to us." Confirm it happened by calling 1-800-772-1213, and have your parent's Social Security number ready. That one call also covers Medicare, which is notified through Social Security.
Three things follow from it. First, the money for the month of death has to go back. Social Security pays a month behind, and the rule is that "you must return the benefits received for the month of death and any later months." If a check arrives, don't cash it. If it was direct-deposited, the bank will pull it back. Second, a surviving spouse who was living with your parent can get a one-time payment of $255. Third, a surviving spouse aged 60 or older, or 50 or older with a disability, may qualify for monthly survivor benefits on your parent's record, as can a dependent child or a dependent parent 62 or older. Ask about those on the same call. They aren't automatic.
What needs to be canceled when someone dies?
Work down this list over the first two weeks. None of it needs a lawyer.
- The VA, if your parent was a veteran. Call 800-827-1000 and press 5. The VA pays a burial allowance, $1,002 plus $1,002 toward a plot for deaths on or after October 1, 2025, for veterans who qualify, and veterans and their spouses can be buried at no charge at Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell, about an hour from most of our area. The funeral home can arrange it; the cemetery's scheduling office is 1-800-535-1117.
- Life insurance, pensions, and annuities. Call each company, ask what they need, and start the claim. Life insurance pays the named beneficiary directly and never goes through probate.
- The credit bureaus. Mail a copy of the death certificate to one of the three, with your parent's name, Social Security number, date of birth, and date of death, and your own name and address. Equifax says that when one bureau adds a deceased notice, "it will notify the other two." This stops anyone opening credit in your parent's name, which happens more than people think.
- The county property appraiser. Florida law requires the owner of a homesteaded property to notify the appraiser "whenever the status or condition of the owner changes." A surviving spouse keeps the homestead exemption and the Save Our Homes cap, and can add a widow or widower exemption of $5,000 by filing a death certificate with the appraiser before March 1. Our property tax page covers the exemptions.
- Banks and brokerages. Tell them, and ask what each account needs. Read the bank account question below first, because what the bank can release depends on how the account was titled.
- Everything on autopay. Phone, cable, subscriptions, memberships, insurance on a car nobody's driving. Cancel what isn't needed, but keep the homeowner's insurance and the utilities on the house running until it's settled.
- The mail. File a forwarding order with the post office so bills and statements reach whoever is handling the estate.
Do I have to file the will?
Yes, and quickly. Florida law says the person who has the original will "must deposit the will with the clerk of the court" in the county where your parent lived "within 10 days after receiving information that the testator is dead." The Hernando County clerk's own page says "there is no fee to file a will"; ask your county's clerk to confirm, but expect the same. Depositing the will is not the same as opening probate. It just puts the original on file so nobody can lose or change it. Someone who holds onto a will without good reason can be made to pay the costs of getting it.
If you can't find a will, check the safe deposit box, the desk, and the lawyer who did your parent's other papers. If there is no will, our page on dying without a will shows who inherits.
The money
Can I take money out of my dad's bank account after he dies?
Only if your name was already on it, or you're the named beneficiary. Otherwise, no, and doing it anyway can make you personally liable to the estate and the other heirs.
Florida sorts every account into one of three kinds. A joint account, with your name and your father's both on it, belongs to you the moment he dies; Florida law presumes that's what the owners intended. An account with a pay-on-death beneficiary goes to that person on presenting a death certificate, no court involved. An account in your father's name alone, with no beneficiary, is frozen until the probate court appoints a personal representative, who then collects it for the estate. The power of attorney doesn't count for any of this, because it ended at death.
People ask why they shouldn't just keep using the account quietly, or hold off telling the bank. Because the bank will find out, will freeze the account when it does, and will look at every withdrawal after the date of death. Tell the bank, and let the account be handled the way its title says.
Do I have to pay my mom's debts?
No, not from your own money. The Federal Trade Commission puts it plainly: "By law, family members usually don't have to pay the debts of a deceased relative from their own money." The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau adds that it's illegal for a debt collector to suggest otherwise. The exceptions are debts you were already responsible for: an account you co-signed or a joint credit card.
Your mother's debts are paid from what she left, through probate, in an order Florida law sets. Creditors have three months from the day the personal representative first publishes a notice in the local newspaper to file a claim, and after two years from the death no claim can be brought at all. If the estate can't cover the debts, the creditors go unpaid; nobody inherits the shortfall. A collector who calls you is owed a polite "contact the estate," and nothing else.
What debts are forgiven at death in Florida?
None are forgiven, exactly, but many go unpaid, and some property can't be touched to pay them.
The family home that passes to a spouse or heirs is protected homestead, which Florida's constitution shields from most creditors, so a credit card company can't force its sale. Up to $20,000 in household furniture and two cars are exempt property that goes to the spouse or children ahead of creditors. Life insurance and retirement accounts with named beneficiaries never enter the estate, so creditors can't reach them. What's left in the estate pays the debts in order: the costs of probate and the funeral first, then taxes and the last illness, then everything else. Medicaid, if it paid for nursing home care, is a creditor like any other, with its own limits; our Medicaid and your house page covers exactly what it can and can't collect.
With a will, without a will
What happens if there's a will?
The will says who gets what and who's in charge, but it only takes effect through probate court. The person the will names as personal representative, Florida's term for executor, files the will and a petition with the court, and the judge issues letters of administration, the paper the bank and everyone else will ask for. From there the personal representative gathers what your parent owned in their name alone, publishes the notice to creditors, pays the valid debts, and distributes the rest as the will directs.
How long it takes depends on the size of the estate. If what's going through probate is worth $150,000 or less, after subtracting the protected home, or your parent has been dead more than two years, the estate qualifies for summary administration, which skips the personal representative and can finish in weeks. That limit was $75,000 through 2025, and older articles still say so. Larger estates go through formal administration, which The Florida Bar says takes about five or six months for a simple case, and in nearly every case needs a lawyer.
What happens when someone dies without a will in Florida?
Florida's law decides who inherits, in a set order that starts with the spouse and children. The court still appoints a personal representative, with the spouse first in line, and the rest of probate runs the same way. The two places families get surprised are second marriages, where the spouse gets half and the children from the first marriage share the other half, and the family home, which has its own rules. Our dying without a will page has the full order, with charts.
Does everything have to go through probate?
No. Anything with a built-in next owner passes outside probate on a death certificate alone: joint accounts, accounts with beneficiaries, life insurance, retirement accounts, a house owned jointly with a right of survivorship, a house with a lady bird deed, and anything in a living trust. For a married couple who owned everything together, there may be nothing to probate at all on the first death. Our avoiding probate page sorts out what skips and what doesn't.
The house and the car
What happens to the house?
Check the deed first. If your parents owned it together, it passed to the survivor at the moment of death. If it has a lady bird deed, it passed to the person named. If it was in your parent's name alone, Florida's homestead rules decide: a surviving spouse gets the right to live there for life, with the children owning it after, and the spouse has six months to choose half ownership outright instead. That deadline can't be extended. Our no-will page has the house chart, and our settling a home after a death page covers securing the house, the belongings, and the estate sale side.
How do I transfer a car title after someone dies?
At the tax collector's office, and usually without probate. Florida law lets an heir retitle a vehicle by filing an affidavit that the estate owes no debts and the family agrees on who gets the car, with a death certificate and the title. The form is HSMV 82040. A surviving spouse uses form HSMV 82152 and pays no title fee at all, only the fee for a faster title if wanted. If the estate is in formal probate, the personal representative signs with the letters of administration instead.
Taxes and loose ends
Do I have to file a tax return for someone who died?
Yes, one last return, due the same day it would have been if they'd lived, April 15 of the following year. The IRS says to "file and prepare the final individual income tax return of a deceased person the same way you would if the person were alive," on Form 1040, with "DECEASED," the name, and the date of death written across the top. If a personal representative has been appointed, they sign. If it's a joint return, the surviving spouse signs too, and if no one has been appointed, the spouse signs alone and writes "Filing as surviving spouse." A refund owed to the estate needs Form 1310. IRS Publication 559 covers the details.
Could my parent have money nobody knows about?
It's worth ten minutes to check. Florida holds unclaimed money from old bank accounts, insurance policies, utility deposits, and uncashed checks at fltreasurehunt.gov, the state's unclaimed property site. Heirs can claim it. If the total is $20,000 or less and no probate is open, Florida law lets the beneficiaries claim it with a signed affidavit instead of a court order.
Free help in Citrus, Hernando and Pasco County
Who can I talk to about this for free?
Florida Senior Legal Helpline: free legal advice by phone for Florida residents 60 and older. Probate, wills, and creditor questions are within what they cover. If you're calling about a parent who has died, call about your own situation as the surviving family member.
1-888-895-7873
Monday to Friday, 9:00 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. There are income limits, but they don't count your savings.
| County | Legal aid office | Phone |
|---|---|---|
| Citrus | Community Legal Services | 1-800-405-1417 |
| Hernando | Community Legal Services | 1-800-405-1417 |
| Pasco | Bay Area Legal Services | 1-813-232-1343 |
For a veteran's family, the county veterans service office helps with VA claims at no charge. Your Elder Helpline can point you to grief support and other local programs: 1-800-262-2243 for Citrus and Hernando, 727-217-8111 for Pasco.
Also worth reading
- Settling a home after a death in Florida: securing the house, the belongings, estate sales, and fraud
- Dying without a will in Florida: who gets the house and everything else, with charts
- How to avoid probate in Florida: what skips probate and what doesn't
- Medicaid, nursing homes and your house: what Florida can and can't collect after a death
- Legal questions Florida families ask about an aging parent: the hub for all of these
Sources
- Florida Statutes section 709.2109, a power of attorney terminates when the principal dies; chapter 765, health care surrogates; section 765.512, an anatomical gift is irrevocable after death; section 765.514, donor designation on a driver license
- Florida Statutes section 497.005(43), who has the legal right to make funeral and disposition decisions, in order
- Florida Statutes sections 382.025 and 382.0255, confidentiality of the cause of death and certificate fees; Florida Department of Health, Bureau of Vital Statistics, death certificate ordering page (fees as posted September 2026)
- Florida Statutes section 732.901, deposit of the will within 10 days; Hernando County Clerk of Court probate page (no fee to deposit a will)
- Social Security Administration, "Survivors Benefits" (Publication 05-10008) and ssa.gov/survivor; Medicare.gov, "Report a death"
- U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, how to report a veteran's death, burial allowance rates effective October 1, 2025, and Florida National Cemetery
- Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion instructions for reporting a death; Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and Federal Trade Commission guidance on a deceased person's debts
- Florida Statutes sections 655.79 and 655.82, joint and pay-on-death accounts; 733.702, 733.710 and 733.2121, creditor claims and the notice to creditors; 733.707, order of payment; 732.402, exempt property; 735.201, summary administration as amended by chapter 2026-57
- Florida Statutes section 196.011(10)(a), duty to notify the property appraiser; 193.155(3), surviving spouse keeps the assessment cap; Citrus County Property Appraiser, widow and widower exemption instructions
- Florida Statutes section 319.28, vehicle title after the owner's death; FLHSMV procedure TL-18 and forms HSMV 82040 and 82152
- Internal Revenue Service, Publication 559 and "Deceased taxpayers: filing the final returns"; Florida Statutes section 717.1243, small estate claims for unclaimed property
- Florida Department of Elder Affairs, Senior Legal Helpline and Elder Helpline