Sorry to hear your news, my thoughts are with you and your mum.
My own mum just recently passed away from cancer which had started in her lungs an riddled her body. (Passed away on 22nd Feb, diagnosed in June 2007). My mum was lucky to have been in pretty good health returning from a holiday in cyprus on the wednesday morning. She had become ill (loss of appetite) on the sunday and on her return was taken into hospital on the wednesday evening. She was really confused and didn't know anyone. I rushed over there Thursday morning to see her and spent the day with her and talked to the doctors and nurses. Her kidneys weren't working and they weren't sure if it was an infection or the cancer. They said they would see how she responded over the next few days, if she didn't respond at all then she would have a matter of days (less than a week). We took the decision the thursday night to go home (mum was in Hull and we live in Stone, Staffordshire - 2hrs (120 miles) away). Before we left we had a really nice nurse (male although that made no difference) who gave us great advice. He said "Always say goodbye as if it's your last, you'll then not regret it as much if you are unable to get here when she does pass away. We did this, I kissed my mum goodbye, told her I loved her and gave her a hug. I wished her the love of my twin sister who was trapped in America (Immigration issues) and said we'd see her on the Sunday.
The following morning we received a call at 6.30am advising that she was getting worse. As you can expect we did our best to get over there but alas she passed away at 7.15am with her partner by her beadside, my mum was 58.
Mum knew she had cancer and was very practical about it. We discussed with my sister what mum wanted for her funeral. Mum wasn't a particuarly religious person but we knew what she wanted as she'd had to go through a funeral 3 years previous for her own father and 3 years before that for her mother. We borrowed the format from my grandparents funerals although my wife and I insisted on chosing a different funeral director as we weren't happy with the ones my grandparents had. For reference we chose the co-operative funeral serice and they where fantastic.
When mum passed away as her next of kin I was given the medical certificate stating the cause of death etc. The next thing we had to do was register the death. To do this you need to call up and make an appointment and we got ours for 2pm the same day. At the registration of the death you need to give details of the deceased and if possible the birth certificate and medical card. The death can be registered by next of kin or someone who was present at the death.
We asked for 10 copies of the death certificate but the registrar advised that 5 would be sufficient, I wish I'd gotten 10 for ease but you live and learn! I think they where 3.50 each. The registrar will also give you a form to hand to the funeral director, keep this safe!
Whilst in town we also made arrangements to collect the original will from the solicitor and then I visited the banks and building societies that mum had accounts with. You may get lucky but may also need to make appointments. Mum had put together all her paperwork, paid off her credit card and had ensured she had no outstanding loans. Because of data protection etc some banks wouldn't disclose balances or direct debit lists so that makes the job fun as the accounts will be frozen if in the deceased name only
After treking around town I went back to mum and her partners house and called our chosen undertaker. As it was a Friday evening he advised that the body would remain at the hospital and made an appointment to see us on the Sunday morning.
On the Sunday morning we went along and saw the funeral director. He talked us through the options and we chose what we wanted. Key things are how many cars do you want (we had 3 and they where £120 each), was it going to be a cremation or burial (we had church service and then coffin went alone to be cremated), what casket do you want (mum had discussed this and so we wanted light wood, there was a real dark wood one with the last supper engraved (each to there own I suppose!), if cremation do you want a casket (we are scattering mum in belgium, brighton and california - the ashes tour - so we took the standard plastic urn as we wanted our own mini urns so that we could split the ashes up), flowers, newspaper notice, place of any after funeral celebration.
Upon providing the information the funeral director liaised with the minister and the funeral was set for a week on the monday (day after mothers day 3rd March 2008). At this point you get your first bill. This was for disbursements for things like the church, minister, newspaper, body collection etc. This came to just shy of £1k, I had an empty credit card which was assigned to paying for things for the funeral and estates.
We wrote cards for the flowers, put personal messages in the newspaper (these can't go in until the official notice goes in from the funeral director) and then we returned to Stone later that evening.
From home I then set about getting in contact with the all the people who mum had arrangements with so that was her mobile phone, car insurance etc. Some wanted original death certs, some just photocopies. I had to contact her employer, she was off on sick as you can imagine, her pension provider as she had semi retired as well as her insurance companies. I gave her car to her partners son in law who had an accident on the same weekend and contacted the dvla to transfer it across.
Next up was the planning of the funeral service. We'd already discussed hymns and readinds and we had some music played too. We had readings of memories of mums life from her friends, mum wasn't overly religious so there was just the one bible reading, it was mainly fun stories that made us remember my mum just the way she was!
We met the minister who was going to conduct the service on the Saturday before it and had done an "Order of service" A5 booklet to be issued to all those attending.
Mum had requested a family meal (we are quite spread out over the country) so my wife organised a meal for 20 of us on Mothers Day and we put up silly and fun photos of mum up as we all remembered her.
Onto the funeral itself....everything went to plan and I know that we did mum proud. As mentioned before my sister was stuck in America so sent me some words which I got my mums god son to read out. My wife read something personal out from me because I wasn't able to, bless her xx. After the service we met lots of mums friends, some I hadn't seen in 20 years but they all had good stories and memories to share.
The day after the funeral we returned home and I had decided I wouldn't return to work until the following Monday. This gave me chance to start putting the estate together.
Mum was divorced and living with her boyfriend. They where financially separated he knew mums wishes with regards to the will etc. The will left a split between myself and my twin sister 50/50 but outside of the will mum had asked for a "generous gift" to be made to her boyfriend which I have no problem with at all. Because mums assets where > 20k we had to go through the process of probate. A "grant of probate" basically means that you have been assigned to execute the terms of the will but I will explain further.
Most people use a solicitor to complete the process which involves you giving him the details and he fills in the forms and submits them, chasing people up etc where need be.
Mum had gathered together all her policies etc as she was a teacher and was organised like that! This made the sorting a lot simpler! Following advice from the Halifax I was advised to take a look at the probate forms and consider doing them myself. Having completed self assesment tax returns in the past I was used to government forms.
Upon reviewing the form and the guidance notes that came with them I decided to have a punt myself. The probate form itself is a mere 4 pages long but when someone dies their estate needs to be assesed for inheritance tax purposes. In mums case this turned into about a 60 page form.
I posted off the probate form, original will and the summary from the inheritence tax form and the notes say that you should receive an interview with a probate officer within 10 days. Sure enough 9 days later I got the letter returning the inheritence summary stamped by the probate office so that I could send the other 60 pages off to HMRC to be reviewed for inheritence tax liablities. (The threshold for IHT is £300k and mum was nowhere near this). Our appointment for the probate interview was just over a week away from when we got the letter.
We turned up at the court (Stafford in our case) and saw the probate officer. The lady ran through the process and we had to swear some statements and sign various documents. We where informed that the HMRC had been speedy and already returned the complete IHT forms to them and so probate would be granted in 2 - 3 weeks as opposed to 10 - 12! At this stage the original will now becomes state property and you get an authorised copy when probate is issued. We request 10 copies of the grant of probate to aid us in collecting in money from organisations who where holding money. (Cost £1 each).
Lo and behold 7 working days later the grant of probate was received. (Last Saturday infact) so we are now in the process in sending the grants out to those who have requested them! By doing this ourselves we have saved at least £500 (Cost to apply yourself is £90 + number of copies you want) over using a solicitor. It took less than 6 weeks from applying to getting the grants!
Having been through the probate form I wouldn't transfer anything without double checking first. The HMRC have to be sure that you aren't looking to avoid IHT so ask lots of questions about this!
Your a good lad/man for helping your mum with this, it's not very nice to sort and goes on for a considerable length of time.
To give you an idea I have todate only received £700 in payments into the estate so you need to be prepared to cover some outgoing payments in the medium term (upto 6 months). Mum didn't own property she just had savings, current accounts, ISA, investment plans, an endowment and pension so the estate was really simple.
Anyway if you need any more specific advice or just need a chat you can get me on my trust details. It's not a nice thing to go through and if I can give you any support then please just ask.
I'm quite well adjust about it all and have a very supportive family, hence why I'm ready to takle this'un!
Hehe