Apart from tangible assets and estate, there may be a myriad of other items that your loved one may leave behind upons their demise—from phone bills, to social media accounts and much more. Here is a list of items to consider when your loved one passes on.

 

Subscriptions and bills

In our time on earth, we subscribe to many services and pay for our various perusals, ranging from phone contracts, software subscriptions, newspaper services or even gym memberships. Since the loved one will not be needing these services anymore, you should also quickly cease subscriptions from all such services before making unneeded payments.

It would be helpful to start a list of the services that you know your loved one has been using to your knowledge, and then subsequently working your way to finding out other payments that have been made through email accounts and bank statements.

Modes of messaging

For instance, emails, snail mail, and instant messaging apps like Skype, Whatsapp or Telegram accounts will be left behind by your loved one. If you have access to such accounts, you can leave a message to their contacts before deactivating these accounts. If you don’t have access, it is useful to email the relevant service providers and request that these accounts to be deactivated.

Social media

Your loved ones may leave behind digital footprints that can easily be deleted, locked and ‘frozen’, or simply kept up for the memories. You can consider what your loved one’s wishes would be and act accordingly—whether it is to delete, privatise, or leave the account untouched. It is also possible to move all the content up to a platform that serves as a memoriam of your loved one’s life on earth.