Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
In March of this year, my former spouse died. Since our divorce nearly eight years ago, I have been the keeper of his personal papers since he never found a permanent place to live after moving out of the marital home. Whenever he'd need something such as a copy of his birth certificate, he'd send me a message and or call and I'd mail it to wherever he was living at the time.
Now that he's gone, I'm trying to figure out what to do with these papers which range from copies of his birth certificate to blueprints for the house that he had built (and wanted no reminders of) to tax returns to some medical paperwork (runs the gamut from a major surgery that he once had to his many stays in various rehabilitation facilities to some legal paperwork from his run-ins with the law).
My ex had limited contact with his family due to a combination of physical distance and the limitations imposed by the fallout from his addiction, so taking the paperwork to them makes little sense. That and this is pounds of paperwork, so shipping it to them is out of the question.
Shredding or burning anything with his social security number, birthdate, etc. is a no-brainer, but what do I do with the rest of this? I'd send the blueprints to a family member of his who was the builder of that home, but I don't want to upset them as that house was always a bone of contention between them. The notion of sending them to the current owners of the house also gives me pause as they tried to sue my ex and me a year after purchasing the house from us. (Long story, that.)
***Mods: Feel free to move this to another sub forum if it's a better fit elsewhere.
Last edited by Formerly Known As Twenty; 06-21-2022 at 08:18 PM..
If he had children, I'd say send it all to his children, as they might genuinely want that info about the father someday if not now. But since you didn't mention kids, I assume there aren't any.
So I'd make a basic list of the paperwork you have by category (personal data, medical records, house related, etc.) and send the list to his family members. Tell them if they would like the paperwork in any of these categories and want to pay for postage, you will ship it to them. Whatever no one wants, shred. Most likely you will end up shredding most everything but you won't have to worry about having gotten rid of anything prematurely.
If he had children, I'd say send it all to his children, as they might genuinely want that info about the father someday if not now. But since you didn't mention kids, I assume there aren't any.
So I'd make a basic list of the paperwork you have by category (personal data, medical records, house related, etc.) and send the list to his family members. Tell them if they would like the paperwork in any of these categories and want to pay for postage, you will ship it to them. Whatever no one wants, shred. Most likely you will end up shredding most everything but you won't have to worry about having gotten rid of anything prematurely.
Thank you for your response. My ex and I didn't have any children--either together or separately, so you were correct in your assumption.
I no longer have any contact info for my former father-in-law and my ex's mother predeceased him, so that's a dead end (no pun intended) there. My ex's aunt and I are in touch here and there. Although my ex's father is estranged from his siblings, she might be the best one to advise me on what to do with the blueprints and the birth certificate.
The tax returns are largely joint ones from when we were married and others that are decades old, so perhaps the best thing to do with them since they're long past the seven year mark is to burn them in the fireplace. I just wasn't sure if I should do so as I used to receive credit collection calls for him well after we'd been divorced. Didn't want the Feds to be the next ones to try and collect (although that's a long shot, I know).
OP - while it was honorable of you to be the record keeper for your ex, now that he is gone, you have zero, none, zip responsibility for any of those old worthless pieces of paper. Shred or burn. All of it. Today.
Who is the executor of his estate? That's where these papers need to go, if they go anywhere at all. The other option is to simply burn or shred them all. You're not responsible for keeping them.
Who is the executor of his estate? That's where these papers need to go, if they go anywhere at all. The other option is to simply burn or shred them all. You're not responsible for keeping them.
He had no estate to speak of as he died as a borderline indigent person. There was probably just enough money left in his account(s) to cover the cost of his cremation. I'm guessing that his dad handled the details of his autopsy and cremation, but we've not spoken since just before the last marital home was sold.
After weighing the advice given, I have decided to keep the some of the paperwork from the two houses that we owned together, setting aside the blueprints and other papers of interest associated with the house that my ex had built in a envelope that will be with my own personal things to be mailed to whoever the current owners of the house whenever I get around to it in the next year or so having been reassured that any issues with the house are long past being my legal problem (it's been over decade since it was sold). The copy that I have of his birth certificate I am sending to his aunt as I have no way of contacting my former father-in-law.
He had no estate to speak of as he died as a borderline indigent person. There was probably just enough money left in his account(s) to cover the cost of his cremation. I'm guessing that his dad handled the details of his autopsy and cremation, but we've not spoken since just before the last marital home was sold.
After weighing the advice given, I have decided to keep the some of the paperwork from the two houses that we owned together, setting aside the blueprints and other papers of interest associated with the house that my ex had built in a envelope that will be with my own personal things to be mailed to whoever the current owners of the house whenever I get around to it in the next year or so having been reassured that any issues with the house are long past being my legal problem (it's been over decade since it was sold). The copy that I have of his birth certificate I am sending to his aunt as I have no way of contacting my former father-in-law.
Everything else will be burned in the fireplace.
keep some of the items.
After 20 years I received notice of a former spouses passing away. I was his insurance beneficiary - very strange.
OP - while it was honorable of you to be the record keeper for your ex, now that he is gone, you have zero, none, zip responsibility for any of those old worthless pieces of paper. Shred or burn. All of it. Today.
and I agree with this.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
I'm guessing that his dad handled the details of his autopsy and cremation, but we've not spoken since just before the last marital home was sold. 
