How do I forward or stop a loved one's mail?

How can a family forward mail of a deceased person?

A family decides where the mail should go, reads the USPS page for the way to ask, and keeps a routine for what arrives meanwhile. The steps below are short, so a relative who is not at the house can follow them from a phone.

The June's Help mail forwarding checklist

1. Agree who collects the mail now and where it is kept, and write the name on the note.
2. On a phone, open the USPS page on stopping or forwarding mail for the deceased and read it from the top.
3. Note which option on the page fits: one piece of mail, or all of it. Write down what the page says it asks to see.
4. Gather what the page says it asks to see. If the family is unsure whether it can show those documents, a lawyer can tell them.
5. Set up the sorting routine below for the mail that arrives before forwarding starts.
6. Photograph the official letters and send them to the relative who is not at the house. The person who signed up adds the photos to June's Help.
7. Ask each bank, insurer and agency that writes regularly which address it should use, and note the answer.
8. Write the date the forwarding or the stop was asked for on the note.

• United States Postal Service How to Stop or Forward Mail for the Deceased USPS's page on stopping or forwarding the mail of a person who has died., official page, opens in a new tab

See also: What to do with a loved one's mail after a death, How do I stop junk mail for someone who died?

What does the USPS page cover?

The page covers forwarding a single piece of mail, forwarding all of it, and what the Post Office asks to see. It is the place that says what applies, and a family reads it before going.

This guide does not repeat the page, and it does not say who may ask. A lawyer can tell a family whether they can show what the page lists.

Can mail be stopped as well as forwarded?

The USPS page is titled for stopping or forwarding, so the family reads both options there. Stopping mail for a deceased person is one way to deal with advertising, and the Deceased Do Not Contact list is another, which the junk mail guide covers.

Letters from banks, insurers and agencies are not advertising. A family that is stopping mail keeps reading the official ones for as long as they arrive.

See also: How do I stop junk mail for someone who died?

What routine keeps the mail from piling up?

Mail piles up quickly, so a fixed routine does more than a big effort now and then. Pick one spot, one day or two each week, and five minutes with a pen.

At each sitting, sort the mail into four piles and write one line on every official letter:

• Official letters: a bank, an insurer, a pension plan, an agency or a court. Write the sender and the date printed on it.
• Bills and statements: set them beside the list of accounts to ask about.
• Personal mail: cards and notes, kept for the family to read.
• Advertising: kept in a separate folder until the stop requests are made, then discarded.

See also: How to sort the letters that arrive after a death

How can a relative who is not at the house read the letters?

The person who signed up adds the photos to June's Help, from the "Your letters" page or by email, as a reply to an email from June with the photos attached, sent from the address of the account. Whoever collects the mail takes a picture of the official letters, flat and in good light, and sends it to that person.

June reads your letters in plain words. For a letter from a bank, a life insurance company, a pension plan or Social Security, the reading quotes the letter's own lines, shows the dates printed on it and suggests questions to ask the sender. Each reading comes from an AI, so the family compares the quotes and dates with the photo.

With the assistant plan, the person who signed up can invite a relative who lives in Texas to a family seat, an extra on top of the assistant plan. The holder reads the letters as June read them and cannot add or change anything. While June's Help is open only in Texas, a relative who lives elsewhere reads the photos the family sends on.

See also: How to share the work of an estate with family

What if mail still arrives after forwarding starts?

Some mail keeps coming to the old address for a while. Keep the routine going, and note the sender of anything that arrives. A sender that keeps using the old address can be asked, with the number on its own mailing, to change it.

With the assistant plan, a reminder email comes before a due date that a letter prints, three days before unless the person who signed up picks other days, and a weekly check-in email lists the next due dates.

See also: How do I tell the credit bureaus someone died?, Which accounts do I cancel after a death?