What an executor actually has to do in the first week after someone dies is rarely covered in the paperwork you signed when you accepted the role. Most people step into it with good intentions and very little practical guidance. Heritage Property Transitions, based in St. Louis, MO, works regularly with executors who are managing estates across the region — from Clayton to Belleville — and the pattern is consistent: the first seven days feel like trying to read a map in a language you've never studied.
This article is meant to be that map.
The First 24 to 48 Hours: Notifications and Documentation
Before anything happens with the property, the executor's first job is administrative. You'll need to notify the right people and begin gathering documents.
Start with the death certificate. You will need more copies than you think — often between eight and twelve certified copies. Banks, insurance companies, financial institutions, and the probate court each typically require an original. Order them through the funeral home or directly through the county vital records office. Waiting on these can delay everything else, so this step has real downstream consequences.
Notify the Social Security Administration. If the deceased was receiving benefits, those payments must stop. A payment received in the month of death may need to be returned. This is not optional and not something to defer.
Locate the will. If you don't already have it, check the home, any safe deposit boxes, and contact the deceased's attorney. The will is what establishes your authority, and without it — or without a court order in its absence — you have limited standing to act on behalf of the estate.
File for probate if required. Not every estate goes through formal probate, but many do. In Illinois, which covers areas like O'Fallon and Belleville, the threshold and process differ from Missouri, so if the estate crosses state lines or includes property in both states, you may be dealing with two separate court systems. An estate attorney is worth the consultation fee here.
Days Two Through Four: Securing the Property
Once the legal groundwork is started, turn your attention to the physical property. Your responsibility as executor includes protecting estate assets, and the home is typically the most significant one.
Change the locks or rekey them. This is not about distrust — it's about your legal obligation to preserve the estate. Keys get passed around during illness and caregiving, and not all of them come back.
Do a walkthrough. You're looking for anything that needs immediate attention: a leaking pipe, a furnace that's been left off in winter, food that will spoil, medications that need to be secured or disposed of properly. In older homes — and there are many in the Kirkwood and Webster Groves areas with homes dating back several decades — you may also find deferred maintenance that could affect insurance coverage or the eventual sale.
Contact the homeowner's insurance company. Vacant properties often require a rider or endorsement to maintain coverage. Some policies lapse coverage after 30 or 60 days of vacancy. Find out where the estate stands before that becomes a problem.
Collect the mail. Set up a mail forward through the USPS. Bills, financial statements, and legal notices will keep arriving, and missing them can create complications.
Days Four Through Seven: Inventory and Planning
By the middle of the first week, you should have a clearer picture of what you're dealing with. Now comes the part that most executors underestimate: figuring out what's actually inside the home and what to do with it.
A basic inventory doesn't require an appraiser yet. Walk through each room and document what's there — furniture, collections, paperwork, tools, vehicles, jewelry. Photograph as you go. This record protects you legally and helps you make informed decisions about what needs professional appraisal versus what can be handled through donation coordination or a standard estate cleanout.
This is also when you start thinking about timeline. If the property needs to be sold, there's often a closing date or probate deadline driving the schedule. Knowing that date helps you work backward and understand how much time you have to sort, remove, and prepare the home. A full estate cleanout — clearing furniture, boxes, decades of accumulated belongings, and sometimes a dumpster load or more of items that can't be donated — takes more time than most people expect. For a home with 30 or 40 years of contents, a week of physical work is not unusual.
If you're in the St. Louis area or across the river in O'Fallon or Belleville, getting a realistic assessment of what a cleanout involves — the labor, the haul volume, the donation coordination logistics — helps you build a schedule that doesn't fall apart when the closing date gets closer.
What an Executor Actually Has to Do in the First Week: The Emotional Reality
It would be incomplete to write about what an executor actually has to do in the first week without acknowledging that most executors are also grieving. You may be sorting through a parent's home while also managing your own loss, fielding calls from siblings, and trying to hold down your regular job.
The practical demands don't pause for that. But the pace can be managed.
One thing that helps: separate the tasks that have hard deadlines from the ones that don't. Notifying Social Security has a deadline. Deciding what to do with a dining room set does not. Give yourself permission to move through the time-sensitive items first and let the rest wait until you have more clarity.
Working with providers who understand that the family sets the pace — not the other way around — makes a meaningful difference. An estate cleanout doesn't have to be rushed just because someone wants to move quickly. And it doesn't have to drag on indefinitely either. A vetted provider who has worked through estates in Ladue, St. Louis County, and across the river into Belleville will understand that every home is different and every family is in a different place.
A Note on Costs and Timelines
One of the most common concerns executors bring up is that they have no idea what a cleanout should cost or how long it should take. That uncertainty is reasonable — there's no standard price list, and the variables are real. The size of the home, the volume of contents, whether items can be donated or need to be hauled, whether there are hazardous materials or specialty items — all of it affects scope.
What an executor actually has to do in the first week doesn't include finalizing a cleanout contract. But it does include getting enough information to plan. That means walking the property, estimating the volume of contents, and having a preliminary conversation with a provider who can give you an honest assessment without pressure.
Heritage Property Transitions works with insured and background-checked providers across the St. Louis region and into southwestern Illinois. We don't quote prices in this article because every estate is different. What we can tell you is that the first step is always a conversation — one that starts with what you're looking at, not what we're selling.
If you're in the early days of managing an estate and trying to get your bearings, that's exactly where we can help.
Ready to get started? Heritage Property Transitions can help.