Grief admin: A practical guide to the piles of paperwork
June 2026
In the third of a series of articles on grief admin, Emma Gray – WAY Ambassador, Therapeutic Grief Coach and former Wills and Probate Solicitor – combines her professional expertise with her own lived experience to help navigate the ongoing grief admin after your life partner dies.
When my Royal Marine husband died of cancer in July 2016, I was an award-winning Wills and Probate solicitor and I had spent years guiding clients through end-of-life paperwork… I thought I knew what paperwork I needed to do and how to do it. But I discovered something that nobody had warned me about… in grief the paperwork can feel completely overwhelming.
Plunged into the depths of grief, I discovered that knowing what needs to be done is totally different to being able to do it, at the same time as trying to survive the worst thing that has ever happened to you. Grief turned my world upside down and I was unable to do the most basic of tasks.
I gave all this sad admin that accompanies loss a name… Sadmin®… and decided to use my legal background and lived experience to help others tackle their own grief admin. In the years since my husband died, I’ve supported hundreds of people to face up to updating their Wills and the other paperwork that we suddenly need to sort. And I’ve realised that there are three types of grief admin, each with its own particular challenges.
This article explains each of the three, all of which WAY members will sadly need to deal with at some point. But the most important thing I would like you to take from this is that you do not have to do any of this paperwork alone… There is support out there and the bravest thing you can do is reach out for help.
1. Pre-death Sadmin®: the planning we often put off
Pre-death Sadmin® is the paperwork that we know we “should” have in place but that usually falls to the bottom of the To Do list. It includes sorting your Will, putting in place Powers of Attorney and Advance Decisions, and making sure that the people we love know where to find our financial information if something happens to us.
As a WAY member, you have heartbreakingly learnt that the unthinkable can happen. I often find that this experience gives many of us a sense of urgency about sorting our own pre-death Sadmin® because we know the chaos that happens if it’s not done. But, in grief it can be emotional and incredibly hard to get round to actually doing this paperwork.
One reason solo parents can’t face this pre-death admin is because they struggle to think about who the guardian will be for their children, but I also don’t think we talk enough about something called “anticipatory grief”. This is the grief we feel for something that has not yet happened, but which we know or imagine will happen… and it includes feelings around our own death, our children’s future without their parents, and the people we love having to manage without us. When we know a bit more about anticipatory grief, it is understandable why our bodies shut down and find anything other than the Sadmin® to do instead.
Those who are fortunate enough that their loved one planned for their death will understand what I mean when I say that the pre-death Sadmin® you put in place is an act of love. And, that paperwork can become what I call an ‘emotional handrail’ for the people left behind as well as a practical guide through the maze of paperwork.
Key things for you to have in place:
- An up-to-date Will covering your current wishes, including guardianship provisions if you have children under 18 years old.
- Named Executors (ideally a minimum of two) who know they have been appointed.
- Lasting Powers of Attorney (LPAs) for both finances and health and welfare. Whilst your Will states who gets what when you die, LPAs are separate legal documents stating who can make decisions on your behalf if you lose mental capacity during your lifetime.
- An Advance Decision (sometimes called a Living Will), which sets out specific treatment you do not wish to have (such as not wanting to be resuscitated).
- A record or inventory of your financial accounts, insurance policies, pensions and digital passwords kept somewhere safe but known to your Executors.
My advice is to use a qualified professional, ideally a solicitor who is a member of the Association of Lifetime Lawyers and/or the Society of Trust and Estate Practitioners (STEP) to draft your Will and Powers of Attorney.
2. Post-death Sadmin®: the probate paperwork
Post-death Sadmin® is tough because it must be dealt with in the very early stages of grief when you are most heartbroken, exhausted, and possibly feeling least able to cope. It is the tidal wave of paperwork related to administering your person’s estate.
The post death Sadmin® includes registering the death, locating the Will, notifying various organisations (banks, pension providers, insurers, HMRC, DVLA etc), calculating the assets and liabilities in the estate, if applicable applying for probate, claiming bereavement benefits etc. The list is long and overwhelming.c
A few things that help:
- Request at least ten certified copies of the death certificate when you register the death because most organisations won’t accept photocopies.
- Use the government’s Tell Us Once service to notify multiple departments (e.g. HMRC, DVLA, DWP, Passport Office) in a single step.
- Ask a trusted friend or family member to help with calls and correspondence. People often want to help but don’t know how, but this is something useful they can do.
- Don’t assume you won’t qualify for bereavement benefits. In particular, find out if you are eligible for Bereavement Support Payments.
- If the estate is complex and/or inheritance tax is due, instruct a probate solicitor early (it is worth getting quotes from two or three, as fees can vary).
The best way to approach this is methodically. Create a list of what is applicable to you. Put anything that has a deadline as a priority. Then tackle each priority one at a time, ticking each off the list as you go. Each small step is a great step forward.
3. Ongoing life admin: the day-to-day stuff that piles up
The third type of Sadmin® can catch people by surprise. Once the post-death admin is mostly done and the funeral has passed, there is a quieter but still overwhelming mountain of ongoing life admin that can pile up surprisingly fast and needs to be tackled.
This includes closing and transferring accounts, sorting your partner’s digital legacy (their email, social media, online storage and photos), restructuring your finances around a different income background, updating your own Will, learning to manage the household bills and all the other day-to-day admin that is relentless. You may have been the person who always dealt with this, or they may have been sorted by your partner, in which case you need to get used to dealing with this, on top of everything else.
Why Sadmin® is so tricky
Dealing with just one type of Sadmin® is emotional, but suddenly being faced with all three at once is huge, especially at a time when grief’ has reduced your thinking capacity. The problem with grief is that it shrinks our “windows of tolerance’, which means that tasks that you used to handle easily suddenly feel completely impossible.
This reduced window is completely normal, it is a neurological response to your loss, and it does not mean you are broken or suddenly lacking in the relevant skills. But, what I want you to know is that the doom pile on the side counter is not evidence that you are not coping… it has accumulated because you are carrying so much and your nervous system is beyond capacity.
One way to regulate your nervous system is to get support from a trusted friend and/or professional to help you to deal with the paperwork. This may be a legal expert, financial advisor and/or a coach, depending on which aspect of the paperwork you find most overwhelming.
How to get the most from working with a solicitor
Whether you are sorting your own Will, navigating probate, or dealing with a more complex legal matter, working with a legal professional can feel daunting. Here are a few things that might help:
- Find the right specialist: For Wills and probate, look for a member of the Association of Lifetime Lawyers (formerly Solicitors for the Elderly) and/or STEP.
- Get quotes: For larger pieces of work, such as probate, solicitors’ fees can vary, so it is a good idea to get two or three fee quotes to compare.
- Arrive prepared: A solicitor’s time costs money. The more organised you are before your appointment the better (e.g., having a list of assets, any relevant documents handy etc).
- Take someone with you: Having a trusted friend or family member with you in appointments can be helpful, especially if you feel stressed or overwhelmed.
- Ask for plain English: It is important that you understand what is being done on your behalf. If something is unclear, it is okay to ask the professional to explain it again or to go more slowly.
You don’t have to do this alone
Whatever type of Sadmin® you are facing right now. please know it is completely normal to find it difficult. But there is a way to get it done and there is support available.
Finally, please remember that progress doesn’t mean perfection. It may just be a place where you feel things are less overwhelming than yesterday! And getting there is easier when big things are broken down into smaller steps and you find the support that works for you.”
Emma Gray is a WAY Ambassador, therapeutic grief coach, qualified integrative counsellor, and former award-winning Wills & Probate solicitor. She is a National Director of the Association of Lifetime Lawyers and founder of Rainbow Hunting Limited. Through Rainbow Hunting she provides grief therapy, coaching, co-working sessions, courses and a mix of practical and emotional therapeutic support for people navigating all three types of Sadmin®, from structured courses to one-to-one coaching.
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