The digital afterlife - what to do when your parent dies suddenly
A newsletter for people supporting their parents as they age
Welcome to Care-full, a practical guide to caring for aging parents. Here, you’ll find my tips about how to juggle your caring responsibilities, where to find support, how to navigate government bureaucracy, and how to keep parents safe at home or find the right care facility for them. And – perhaps, most importantly – you’ll realise that you’re not alone during what’s probably your biggest role (reversal) yet!
This post is an abridged version of an excellent article written by my friend and former colleague Jennifer Cooke, first published in September 2024 on GoodGrief, a website about grief management and end-of-life discussion.
It’s a story about a group of friends who took on a range of responsibilities (power of attorney, executors of a will, among others) for their elderly neighbour when her wife suddenly died. It’s a sad and salutary tale about the difficulties an elderly person can face – beyond grief and loneliness - when their partner dies, in an era when so much personal information is locked up in our email accounts and in our phones.
Jennifer’s experience has implications for those of us caring for ageing parents. Knowing how to access your parents’ email and other accounts, and having the passcode to their phones - or, at least, knowing where they have stored these details - is vital if you are to help manage their affairs while they are alive or settle them after they die.
It’s recommended reading for anyone caring for their elderly parent or any elderly person, for that matter, because there are things you will want to have in place in case they become sick or suddenly die. It’s especially useful for couples, when the partner who handles all the finances and household accounts, dies first.
By Jennifer Cooke
I barely know my own online passwords. They are haphazardly hand-written on two pieces of A4 paper, and the ink is fading at the edges.
But to the executor of an estate, these passwords are vital, especially if there is no solicitor or estate specialist helping.
As I learned recently from an article about ‘death cleaning’, everyone needs to leave a ‘digital estate’ for the estate executor left with the job of sorting out everything when a person dies. A digital estate is a document which lists all your logins and passwords.
Thankfully, when the time came for my neighbour to act as the executor for her wife’s will, that exact document was found. (Hallelujah!)
Doris and Janey
That was the only good news for my neighbour – let’s call her Doris – who had been in a long-term relationship with her partner Janey and married for only a short time, after Australia’s same-sex marriage laws passed in 2017.
Doris was named as Janey’s executor, power of attorney and enduring guardian (and vice versa).
After experiencing some serious medical troubles in recent years, Doris, now in her 80s, was expected “to go first”. Indeed, everything about the way their legal and financial affairs were handled seemed predicated on the scenario that Doris would be the first to die.
Janey, the younger of the couple, did all the household administration. Automatic bill-paying for household accounts was set up in Janey’s name. Most online subscriptions – for both – seemed to be organised and supported by Janey with two-factor authentication linked to her mobile phone number.
When Janey fell seriously ill in a matter of weeks and died in hospital last year, Doris was a mess. Concerningly, Doris also seemed to have some cognitive deficits that had gone previously unrecognised by friends. Doris had no family in Australia; Janey had only one sibling who had no children. The couple’s friends were a tight-knit group that, due to age and death, was rapidly diminishing.
When Janey died, no one knew her mobile phone code. She had also used ‘bio finger identification’. It was also quickly apparent in the days after Janey’s death that Doris would be unable – as the executor named in the will – to amass the assets of Janey’s estate to make the required application to the Supreme Court for a grant of probate.
Thankfully, both women had updated their wills during the COVID-19 pandemic with a solicitor, who was retained again to apply for probate – and also to help Doris update her will and reassign the executor as well as her power of attorney and her enduring guardian.
Unfortunately, before these important amended legal changes could be put in place for Doris, she had a fall and suffered several brain bleeds. She spent several weeks in hospital where her cognitive deficits became more pronounced.
When specialist doctors concluded she could not return home without full-time assistance, and no further treatment was offered once the bleeds had stopped, friends rallied.
They talked Doris through the process as much as possible about what was likely if she could not return home. With her consent and the help of a hospital social worker assigned to ensure her proper care, a lovely residential aged care facility was found for her.
When friends step in
Meanwhile, there was still the matter of how to sort out Janey’s estate when Doris was named as the executor in Janey’s will. That’s where I came in.
I became part of the small group of friends looking after Doris’s welfare. Legally, we were jointly appointed her power of attorney, which allowed us to arrange her aged care accommodation, pay her bills there, and also pay bills at the house where she no longer lived, pending its possible sale. Janey’s sibling had a role too in taking up the job as Doris’s guardian. In better health, Doris had named Janey’s sibling as her legal guardian if the need arose, and the time had indeed come.
Doris needed more help when it came to the executor role of Janey’s estate.
She was the sole beneficiary of Janey’s half of their assets – a fairly typical and normally straightforward transfer for married couples when one predeceases the other – but she needed more than usual assistance to make the transfer work.
And so it was that I acted on Doris’s behalf, as executor, to get the ball rolling on Janey’s estate by sending a list of all Janey’s assets that could be found, in the first instance, to the estate’s solicitor for his preparation of an application to the state’s supreme court for a grant of probate, ahead of an expected distribution to beneficiaries – in this case to Doris.
I’d known Doris and Janey for many years as their neighbour – we’d had Friday sunset sparkling shiraz and cheese from time to time – and I had been helping Doris draw up a list of Janey’s assets before Doris had her fall. After her fall, my role took on new significance. I consulted her on everything and there were times when it was clear she was giving free consent. At others it seemed she was not in a position to do so. These were difficult times. I wondered sometimes what would happen in circumstances where people, family or otherwise, could not be trusted.
In my case, I was a friend but still an outsider and not family, because there was none. I was very aware of this unusual situation. I took comfort, as did everyone in Doris’s friends’ group, that as much as we all believed each other to have utmost integrity, we also had the practical benefit of everyone being a check and balance for the sake of accountability.
I visited Doris at her new aged accommodation whenever I could. I asked her the necessary questions, which she answered as best as she could.
Do you have joint bank accounts?
Do you have any shares?
What superannuation do you have?
Do you have any other investments?
Do you have any debts?
I reported to the group my new discoveries as they were made. But it was problematic. Even with Janey’s logins and passwords document, which I’d found, certain household bills could not be paid. Some others remained in a category of unknowns. Not even known unknowns.
The lack of 2-factor authentication to Janey’s mobile phone was a huge problem. I was told by a Telstra employee that Janey’s phone password could not be changed by SMS message sent to her phone, or by another method such as email.
It was a similar problem for Janey’s Bigpond email address: we could not access Janey’s emails, which largely controlled the bills. It was only months later when I returned to the same Telstra shop, that I was able to locate the Telstra Compassionate Care Team on 1800 775 932.
I and two other friends, who also did not want her life to be controlled by the Public Trustee, tasked ourselves with organising her life – with her continued permission – as she settled reluctantly but resignedly into aged care living, accepting her poor memory and other problems meant she could no longer live alone at home.
It was a sad fact that Doris’s life had been suddenly, totally upended and she was without her normal social supports or interests.
It quickly became clear to the Doris friend group that it was better for Doris to be left without her mobile phone. A laptop computer was out of the question as valuable effects were regularly ‘moved’ and sometimes lost forever within the facility.
And so it is, nine months after Janey died, and six months after Doris had her fall and went to hospital never to return home, that her three powers of attorney are also forever changed.
They are extremely stressed. As one of them, I have succeeded in amassing Janey’s assets on Doris’s behalf (at the direction of the estate’s solicitor). I continue to organise all bill payments and keep track of financials and cancel subscriptions, as well as organising house maintenance until Doris’s property is sold.
Another power of attorney has performed the onerous task of liaising with Centrelink over pensions, attended lengthy meetings to understand terminology and form filling, sorted out overlapping superannuation and Centrelink issues, and taken over care of Doris’s beloved pet, all the while visiting and calling Doris regularly.
The third is at the house almost daily, sorting through a large house full of the items – books, files, clothes, historical items, computers, musical instruments, artwork and seemingly endless notes from Janey. All form part of the full lives of two women suddenly apart after decades together.
We all limp on. Doris, we hope, is at least as comfortable as possible.
Important tips based on Jennifer’s experience
Make a will and keep it updated. Every five years or so is a good rule of thumb, particularly as you and your children age.
Appoint ‘cascading’ executors (for wills), powers of attorney (for financial issues of those living near end of life) and enduring guardians (for medical issues for those living near end of life).
Get the agreement of the executor before naming them in a will. It is an onerous duty in some circumstances, particularly if there is friction, disagreement or outright hostility between beneficiaries.
Beware trustee and guardianship institutions. If there is a possibility that this type of institution ends up as executor look closely at its website. The Public Trustee, as it was formerly known in NSW, charges very high fees and can be interventionist. Best to have an executor with a family connection.
Ensure the land title of any property owned by the person with a will lists the correct owner, or owners.
Avoid surprises, some can be nasty. If you are told you are named as executor or any role in a will, ask to read the will. The task of executor can be complicated and time-consuming and, if after doing some of the initial work, you want to step away from the role, you might not be able to do so without permission from the Supreme Court.
Leave passcodes for mobile phones, computers and other electronic devices somewhere in your home for them to be found.
You can read the full account of how Jennifer and others helped Doris here.
Useful links
Telstra - What to do when someone has died
Services Australia – What to do when someone dies
My Gov – Who to tell that someone has died
Today’s totally-unrelated-to-caring offering
Actually, I think this is related to caring – about coping with caring. It’s a documentary about birdwatchers in London. It sums up how I feel about this much maligned pastime: when I stop to listen and look for birds I forget about everything else. It’s exciting and calming at the same time. I was really taken with all of the women in this short, sweet doco about birdwatchers who visit the Walthamstow Wetlands in east London, but keep an eye out for Lira. She’s extra special, I think.
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Wendy Frew is an Australian journalist, author and community broadcaster whose work has appeared in the Sydney Morning Herald, the Australian Financial Review and the BBC, and on 2SER and Radio Northern Beaches. She is the primary carer for her beautiful nonagenarian mother. She wishes she could fly like a Peregrine falcon.