Deceased Resident Policy

I'm looking for some help and advice!

I work for a property management company in marketing and while visiting a couple communities over the past few months I identified a need. Few communities have an official policy or at least follow the official policy for a deceased resident (living alone). Sadly, we have had some recent deaths that have all been treated differently. This is a little out of my knowledge base but I would like to provide some of my operations team members with at least a vague template of what we should have in the hopes that it will jump start an official policy to be shared with all our communities and added to our SOP manual.

Does anyone have any experience with this? Forms or a policy or pieces of a policy they would be willing to share? Experiences with these situations are welcome as well! I also understand each state would be different but just a baseline would greatly help!

Thanks!

I suppose it would vary depending on how they were discovered. All of the GAA applications require an emergency contact. After calling 911, that should be the second call. For the most-part, that emergency contact is usually very diligent in making arrangements for the deceased's belongings, etc.

In my opinion, some leeway should be given to the emergency contact to have the belongings removed due to distance and other complications. As far a written policy, I don't think I've ever seen one.

Thank you so much for your response! Have you ever had any experience or problems with probate court or getting documentation for being the appropriate person to remove such belongings?

No. Fortunately it's only come up a couple of times but it's never come to a point a court had to get involved. We would have the emergency contact on the application and that's who we release the key to. They handle the removal of belongings, etc.

In my experiences (I am in Virginia), if an executor has not been appointed, and the family does not remove the belongings in the apartment on their own and are not communicating their intentions with you , Send a letter to either the person identified as the emergency contact, or if no such person is listed, to the deceased resident at the apartment address, stating that we will treat the property remaining in the apartment as abandoned and will dispose of the property within 10 days of the date of the letter if it’s not removed. We also give the emergency contact access to the apartment to remove the belongings after we send the letter. We of course are flexible with the family's needs and I have never actually had to go forward with disposing of any of the items.

If you manage a property for seniors, it is not a question of whether or not you will run into this; just when it will happen.

If you suspect you have a resident that has passed away or otherwise abandoned the unit, you can post a 24 hour notice of entry to investigate. If you suspect death and need law enforcement assistance, this is when you would ask for it and make an appointment with them before posting your notice to enter. I think it is good practice to do so and when you have the assistance you need, have the resident file handy in case your suspicions are confirmed.


First, you need to check your local jurisdiction about how to handle future households that rent the unit. In CA, you are required to disclose the fact of a resident death for future residents in the same unit for a period of 3 years from the date of that death. You do not have to disclose the nature of the death, but may have to disclose if the death was caused by the production of illegal narcotics. This is usually done by a lease addendum specific to the household(s) that move into a unit subsequent to the death.

In the case of a resident that dies without next of kin known to you, the court takes over and makes an attempt to locate family for you. This is where you should have a space on your application, or a lease addendum that the resident completes to give you emergency contact information (you may want to get updated information at least annually), along with an authorization to release information of this nature if needed. With this information, you can either choose to make contact yourself, or have the local authorities do so for you.

If the authorities are unsuccessful after a certain period of time in their attempts to contact next of kin; then the court releases the unit and belongings for you to dispose of as you see fit.

Whether you have a place to store belongings, or need to leave them in the unit until either family claims them (with proper legal authorization such as a will or power of attorney) or the court releases your responsibility; it is important to inventory and photograph the belongings quickly after the death is discovered. You also need to change the lock and give a key to the authorities for their use while the matter is being investigated.