The first 90 days with a parent's house

For the first three months, forget about selling. Keep the house safe and insured, and get the paperwork in hand. There's also one property tax clock most families never hear about until the Assessor sends a letter. Below is the order I'd do it in, with the office that handles each piece.

You won't be the only one at the counter

It helps a little to know how many people are standing where you are. Sacramento County lost 13,118 residents in 2024, the latest year with final state numbers. About three in four of them (9,869) were 65 or older. That's a lot of grown kids holding a lot of keys.

The count jumped in 2020 and 2021 and has eased a bit since. Even so, 2024 came in about 1,200 deaths higher than 2019.

Week one: lock it and photograph it

Change the locks or at least rekey them. Caregivers, neighbors, the guy who mowed the lawn and three cousins may all have a key, and you have no idea how many copies are floating around. Then walk every room with your phone and take pictures and video, closets and garage included. If anything goes missing or something gets damaged later, those photos are your record of how the house looked the week your parent died.

While you're walking, pull the papers. You want the deed, any will or trust, the homeowners insurance policy, the most recent mortgage or reverse mortgage statement, and the property tax bill. Put them in one folder. That folder is the start of your clipboard.

Call the homeowners insurer this week

This is the call people put off, and it's the one that can cost the most. The California Department of Insurance's guide to homeowners and renters insurance lists "losses to house vacant for 60 days or more" among the perils a homeowners policy generally does not cover. Sixty days goes by fast when you're dealing with a funeral and a will.

When you call, tell them the owner died and ask:

1. Does this policy have a vacancy clause, and how many days does it allow?
2. What counts as vacant under this policy?
3. Can the named insured be changed to the estate or the trustee?
4. If the house will sit empty, what coverage do you offer for that?

Write down who you talked to and the date, then ask for the answers in writing. Keep paying the premium. A lapse on an empty house is a hard thing to explain to your siblings after a pipe lets go.

Keep the lights and water on

I kept my mother's power and water on the whole time, and I'd do it again. An appraiser or a buyer will want to see the house with lights that work. A running meter also tells you something. If the water bill climbs while nobody lives there, you've got a leak somewhere, and you'd rather find it in month two than month eight. Cancel the cable, the landline and the newspaper. Move the utility accounts into the estate's name or your own when the utility will let you.

The mail, from somebody who carried it

I carried mail for twenty-six years, so let me say this plainly: the mailbox is the best inventory of your parent's financial life you will ever get. Bank statements, the pension, the property tax bill, a reverse mortgage servicer you didn't know existed. It all shows up there. A box stuffed full also tells every passerby the house is empty.

The Postal Service spells out the rules on its "Mail Addressed to the Deceased" page at usps.com. If you shared the address, you can open and handle the mail yourself. You can also forward a single piece by crossing out the address, writing "Forward to" with the new one, and putting it back in the box. Forwarding all of it to a different address takes a trip to a post office, in person, with documented proof that you're the appointed executor or administrator. The page is blunt that a death certificate alone isn't enough. To cut down on ads, USPS points to the Deceased Do Not Contact list, and says advertising mail should drop within three months of registering the name.

Certified death certificates

Just about every office on this list wants a certified copy, and some want to keep it. In Sacramento County you can order them from the Clerk-Recorder, which says on its death certificate page that certificates are ready about four weeks after the death and cost $26 a copy. The county public health department's records office also issues them for deaths in the county within the past two years, at the same $26. The California Department of Public Health charges $26 as well, after a state fee increase that took effect January 1, 2026.

Ask for authorized copies. A child, spouse or sibling of the person who died qualifies, and you sign a sworn statement saying so. Informational copies are stamped as not valid for establishing identity, and banks and title companies will hand those right back to you. Order more than you think you'll need. I didn't, and I stood in that line twice.

Social Security

Usually the funeral home handles this. The SSA page on what to do when someone dies says funeral homes generally report the death, so most families don't need to. If no funeral home was involved, or you're not sure it reported, call 800-772-1213 with the person's name, Social Security number, date of birth and date of death. A surviving spouse may also qualify for a one-time $255 death payment.

The 150-day form nobody mentions

A death counts as a change in ownership for California property tax, and the county wants to hear about it. The form is the Change in Ownership Statement, Death of Real Property Owner, which most people call by its state number, BOE-502-D.

The deadline is in Revenue and Taxation Code section 480. If the estate goes through probate, the executor files the statement with or before the inventory and appraisal. In every other case, a trust or joint tenancy included, the trustee or the person who inherits files it within 150 days of the date of death. The Sacramento County Assessor's change in ownership page says the same and warns about failure-to-file penalties. The county wants a statement for each property, a certified death certificate, and a copy of the will, the whole trust, or the letters of administration, whichever applies. Submissions go to the Assessor's office at 3636 American River Drive, Suite 200. The Assessor's loss guidance line is (916) 875-0750.

If a child is moving into the house, the parent-child rules under Prop 19 are a separate filing with their own one-year homeowners' exemption deadline, and the Board of Equalization's Prop 19 page covers them.

Recording an affidavit of death

When a house was held in joint tenancy, or in a living trust, the survivor or the successor trustee usually clears the dead owner off the title by recording an affidavit of death. Probate Code section 210 lets anyone with knowledge of the facts record one, with a certified copy of the death record attached.

The Clerk-Recorder's affidavit of death page lists what the counter checks for: the affiant's name, the decedent's name, a certified death certificate attached, a description of the Sacramento County property, a signature and a verification. Documents handed in by 3:00 p.m. on a weekday get recorded the same day, and the death certificate counts as an extra page for the fee. Blank forms are available from the Sacramento County Public Law Library, which is also a good place to ask questions without paying a lawyer by the hour.

One warning from experience: recording that affidavit does not notify the Assessor. The Assessor's guidance says so in plain words. You still owe the 150-day statement.

The 90-day table

Day 150 falls past the 90-day window, and I put it on the table anyway. By month four most people have stopped checking the calendar, and that's when this one slips.

When selling comes up

Somebody will bring up selling before the 90 days are out. Maybe a sibling, maybe the neighbor who's been eyeing the lot. Before you hire anyone, find out who has the legal right to sign. The Sacramento cash buyer 916 Home Offer has a write-up on what heirs in Sacramento County should know before selling, and it's a fair primer to read ahead of the family meeting.

In my experience, a house that spent its last ten years with an elderly owner comes with a tired roof, old plumbing, or both. The same company has a page on selling a house that needs major repairs, which shows how a cash buyer sizes up that kind of place. Hold it up against a contractor's estimate before you decide anything.

If there's any doubt about who holds title, check with a probate attorney or the court's self-help center before you sign.

Write the date of death plus 150 days on the top sheet of your clipboard today. Everything else on this page has some give in it. That date has none.