After my dad died and the family home was ordered to be sold to finance mum in a care home, which councils do now, she was allowed so much out of the proceeds, think about £21k they allow you to keep personally so my sisters took several thousand pounds out and paid the undertakers we used for Dad for her complete funeral cost which was covered by an insurance policy and the firm were members of the same sort of thing as ABTA for travel so the money would always be there and if the firm went bust, it would be passed onto another lot. It worked out well as mum followed dad within seven years and the only thing we had to pay extra was for a couple of more death certificates. My sisters saved a lot of worry for all of us by doing that. It was a family firm too so not a big one like Coop
So an update of sorts, I arrived in France on Monday, the mood is obviously very sombre but we are all doing our best to absorb by situation and sort everything out as best as we can…. Dad definitely had his paperwork in order and there is a folder which has got everything in relating to bank accounts, pensions, basically everybody that we would need to inform. None of which we have been able to do yet because we had to track down the death certificate (which they had sent away with him) and it had to be posted back. We managed to get it finally yesterday afternoon so can go ahead with taking it to the bank and everyone else.
Obviously I can’t stay here forever and have only managed to book an appointment with the notaire for next Friday but I’ve got to go home on the Sunday. So will have a week to sort out as much as we can including his personal possessions, we are going to need to do a trip back over in a few weeks with the car to take stuff home and we’ll need to try to sell the rest which I’ve no idea how I’ll do that from the UK!
If there are any bulky furniture items you’re willing to donate to charity, you could try Emmaus. They have vans and collect the items themselves. I get the impression however that they are much pickier than in the past and sometimes collections need to be arranged well in advance.
Best of luck. And well done to your Dad for being thoughtful enough to leave his affairs in order.
Its normal to have at least ten copies of the acte de décès given by the local Marie so that you can give originals away but remember to keep some back for some years to come as well