How it works
One engagement, end to end.
Every estate is different, so every engagement starts by building the list for this death, not a package off a shelf. But the spine is always the same: document first, work in the open, finish completely. Here it is in order.
The first call
You tell us what happened and what you're facing. We walk the situation with you, in person locally or by video call if you're far away, and build the punch list: what the estate needs, what it doesn't, and what has a clock on it.
You get a flat quote the same day, in writing, scoped to what we saw. No quote without a walkthrough, because a price made up over the phone is a price that changes later. If something has a meter running, an apartment lease, animals, an insurance lapse, we say so at this call, whether or not you hire us.
The engagement letter comes with a keep-out card: the short list of things that never enter our custody, starting with the original will, titles and bonds. Those stay with your family and your attorney.
The documented visit
Before anything is moved, the whole place goes on record. This one habit prevents most of the trouble families have after a death.
Every room, on camera.
A slow room-by-room video, closets and drawers included, with every heir invited to watch it live from wherever they are. The executor's hands open everything; our camera films. Heirs can ask to see anything, in the moment.
Paper leaves sealed.
All the paper goes into tamper-sealed, numbered boxes on camera, and comes to us for scanning. It is the one thing that visits us, and it comes back organized. Objects never do; they stay with the family.
Valuables stay in your hands.
Jewelry, cash, guns, collections: photographed, counted on camera where counting matters, sealed in numbered bags, and kept by the executor. We document existence and condition. We never take custody.
The small things get numbers.
Magnets, ornaments, the things in the kitchen drawer. Each one bagged, numbered and photographed so any heir anywhere can later say "I'd like that one" and it can actually be found and mailed.
The work, in the open
Three tracks run at once, and everything they produce lands in the family's shared record as it happens.
- The paper track. Cull, scan, organize, map. The asset map grows line by line, each line pointing at its source page. Signature-ready account requests go out under the executor's authority and get chased until they answer.
- The pictures track. Albums and media digitized, item photography finished, every heir's complete digital copy assembled.
- The house track. The review window opens: every heir gets time to look and flag before anything moves. Then flagged items route to the family, the sale sells, donations run with receipts, the cleanout clears, the cleaning crew finishes, and the house is ready.
- The one-door rule. The executor is the single instructing voice, and every instruction is confirmed in writing. Heirs see everything and can flag anything, but requests route through one door so the record stays clean.
It ends finished, not faded out.
An engagement closes with deliverables in hand, not a trailing off. Here is what done looks like:
- The estate asset map. Accounts, debts, property and values, every line source-linked, ready for your attorney or the court.
- The archive. Every scanned page and photo, searchable, delivered to the executor, with every heir holding the family collection.
- The binder. Originals back in order, in your hands, regardless of anything.
- The house, ready. Empty, clean, photographed, keys accounted for.
- The shred, last and slow. Only after the executor signs an itemized manifest, only after a hold window, every page imaged first, destruction certified.
- Your privacy, wound down. We keep one sealed archive copy for a year in case a drive fails, then delete it with a certificate to the executor.
Apartments and senior living: the fast clock
When the unit has to be back in two or three weeks and rent is accruing, speed and care usually fight each other. Our job is to make sure they don't.
We separate the two deadlines nobody should have to merge: the lease deadline, which is real, and the decision deadline, which isn't. In one or two documented days we photograph everything as it sits, pack everything with each box inventoried on camera as it's packed, move the paper to scanning and the belongings to a storage unit rented in the executor's name, with the family's own lock. The unit goes back to the landlord, the meter stops, and the deposit gets claimed with our before-and-after photos behind it. The exit usually has money in it that families don't know to ask about: the security deposit, unused prepaid rent, care-fee prorations, and at some senior communities a refundable entrance fee that can run to five figures. Every one of them goes on the asset map as money the estate is owed.
Then the family decides everything else later, calmly, from the record, on no clock at all. The panicked weekend dumpster run is the single most regretted mistake families make after a death. This is how it never happens.
Live three states away? That's fine.
The whole engagement works remotely: you join the documented visit live and direct it on the record, papers travel by sealed box, the review and the record are digital, and claimed keepsakes ship to every heir's door. If you're flying in for the service, we schedule the visit during that one trip so you don't need a second one. When you can't be in the room at all, a local person you name in writing stands in as your hands while you direct live, and valuables go to a holder with proper standing that you and your attorney choose, their custody, a bank box, bonded storage, never to us.