About Closing Accounts
What this is
A free, practical guide to closing the accounts of someone who has died. Organized by timeline. Honest about what's hard. Written for the person at the kitchen table with a stack of mail addressed to someone who is gone.
The positioning: You've already been through the worst part. Here's the map for what comes next.
What this isn't
A checklist. A legal document. A sales funnel for estate planning services.
This site doesn't tell you how to feel about any of this. It tells you what to do, roughly when, and what to expect when you do it. The emotional context is there because this work is emotional — not to dwell on it, but because naming it honestly makes you feel less alone when it happens.
Principles
- No data collection. We don't track you. No analytics. No cookies.
- No affiliate links. Every resource listed is listed because it's useful, not because we get paid.
- No sales pitches. We mention that professional help exists and when it's worth considering. We are not the thing being sold.
- Not legal advice. This is general information. Laws vary by state. Complex estates need an attorney.
- Honest about what's hard. Nothing on this site is described as "easy."
A note on why this exists
This site exists because in 2007, we went through this. A sudden loss, a stack of mail that kept arriving, a phone that kept ringing, and no resource that acknowledged what it actually felt like to sit on hold for forty-five minutes waiting to tell a stranger that someone was gone.
The internet had checklists. The lawyers had processes. The banks had procedures. None of them treated it as what it actually is: one of the hardest things a human being has to do while simultaneously going through one of the worst things a human being can experience.
That experience is why the tone of this site is what it is. Not clinical. Not cheerful. Just steady — the way someone who has been through it and is sitting next to you would be.
We built the resource we needed then. We hope it helps now.
If you need support beyond the practical — someone to talk to, a community of people who understand, or help finding grief counseling — see our grief resources page.