The first message to the heirs

On the first day heirs need facts, not a calculation. Write who has died, on which date, and who is conducting the contact at this moment. If an executor has been appointed, you name that person and that they keep the administration within the authority of the will. If the role is not yet fixed because the notary must request the will, you say that too. The Central Register of Wills (Centraal Testamentenregister) shows that there is a will, not the full text. Do not promise inspection you do not yet have, and do not name a date on which the whole winding-up will be finished.

Do not share an estimated share of the estate, no percentage and no provisional division of jewellery. Also do not share a judgment about who did too little in the last weeks. Such sentences are later quoted as if they were a decision. Internal notes, draft letters and doubt about someone's acceptance stay outside this message. Say that the figures are not ready and that an overview will follow once the banks and the main debts are in view. There is no statutory end date for finishing a whole estate, so do not name one.

Choose one channel for this first message, so that half the family does not hear a different story. A short letter or an email that you keep in the file is better than a series of voice messages. Put the addressees with it. If someone is a minor or under administration (bewind), the message goes to the legal representative. If in doubt, ask the notary whom you must write to. Ervazo can keep the letter; the program does not send it. You do that yourself and afterwards you record the copy. A message that only stands in a drafts folder has not yet been sent.

In that message ask for practical matters, not for a position on the inheritance. Who has a key, who knows at which bank the deceased banked, and is there a folder with policies. If you wish, give a date by which you want that information, as a working arrangement, not as a legal period. What comes in you put down as a note with the name of the sender. An heir who does not reply stays on the list. Silence is not consent to a division you have not yet proposed. Repeat the question once in writing and keep that second letter too.

If there is already tension, the first message stays factual. Name no blame and no favourite. Offer that questions run through one person, so that you do not make five versions of the same promise. Notes of consultation with the notary do not belong in the enclosure. Heirs receive the same account of the facts, unless the notary prescribes another route. Even then you do not invent an amount of a forced share (legitieme portie) in this first letter; a separate task for that question is enough. Internal notes about character or reproach stay in the office and do not go with it.

This is an administrative checklist, not legal advice. The notary, the bank or the body concerned decides what this file needs and in which order. Ervazo keeps the tasks, the letters and the recorded values. The program does not send the letters, does not pay any debts and does not file a return. For each step, note the date, the person and the document you have received. What is still missing stays an open task. A ticked line means only that the administration has been updated. Do not share a guessed estate, and write that the figures will follow once the documents are there.