I'm deeply sorry for your loss! May God give you and your family the strength to get through this phase.
I could understand how it feels to lose a father as my father passed away too in Jan this year.
Please take care of your mother and yourself. She needs you now more than ever, but she won't say that.
Folks have mentioned excellent checklists and points to complete. That's what I did too. I will suggest some additional points that could be helpful.
From my experience, I could say that first you need to find out what all was/is in his name. My father wrote these things down in a diary (Accounts, RD/FD, LICs, policy numbers, bonds, etc.), so that was helpful. But still I had to go through all the financial documents that he kept in home, online records of gov entities, ITRs etc.to get the complete list of his assets, liabilities, etc.
Same way, you would need to check each and every paper he has left behind. And then figure out the actionable items.
This could be time consuming (but no need to take off from work for this task; do it after working hours and over the weekends), but once this part is done, rest will be easier. You will need to take out time for this task.
This is the planning part. You could make an excel sheet and list down all the items category-wise.
I would suggest NOT to involve or delegate this task to anyone else. Because you are the son, you will do the due diligence.
Based on the action items, you would be able to figure out for which task you need to visit the institution/office and which are possible via online means.
Now, you can call the RM or any other branch representatives to home for paper works. However, in case of demise of an account holder, the bank staff wants to see the other joint account holder or nominee by their own eyes before transferring anything.
These days folks get death certificate, and you would be required to submit it in almost every institution where your father held any asset or liability.
You would be required to submit this certificate in the bank too, and the bank will take action based on the date of demise of uncle. Same goes for tax calculation and refund.
Now, some points in addition to the excellent suggestions given by the members above:
- Some banks ask to close the account in this case: Your father and mother have a joint account. Your father was the primary holder or your father's name is the first one in the account records. Bank will ask to close the account as the primary holder is not alive. I faced this with Union Bank. They didn't allow to remove my father's name from primary holder, and make my mother the primary holder.
- Some banks allow to retain the account in this case: Your father and mother have a joint account. Your father was the primary holder. You could ask the bank to remove your father's name and make your mother the joint holder. PNB agrees to do this.
- Before closing any account, be 100% sure that the account is not receiving any dividend, LIC pension, or any monthly interest payout from any other scheme/policy/account. If it is receiving, then first you would need to update any other account details in that scheme/policy/account, and then close this one. Make sure that there is no SI or monthly deduction or any premium deduction are set in the account that you want to close. You would need to take care of those first, before closing the account.
- You would need to keep the phone numbers (and email IDs) alive (keep recharging the SIM) that he was using as the registered mobile numbers and email IDs till everything is settled. These would not be needed much, but still keep these alive.
- If your father had updated nominee in everything that he held/own, then things would be a lot easier to transfer. But if he had missed to update somewhere, then you would be needed to do some work. It would be done, but it's just that you would need to work for it.
- Some LIC policies or any other policies set a deadline of 90 days or less (it may vary, please check) to notify them about the demise of the policy holder. So, please do this sooner and do not procrastinate.
- Basically, if something is getting credited to any account/policy that is owned by your father, then you would need to notify the institution to stop it, otherwise you may be required to return/refund the credit (with interest) as the person has passed away but credit was disbursed. This becomes very important in case of pensioners. Even if there is a provision of family pension, one needs to notify the Treasury Office to stop the pension first. And then resume it after submitting the necessary documents. Not sure if uncle was a pensioner and your mom will get the family pension. Let me know if that's the case and you need any more info about this topic.
- Any FD/RD that was owned by your father alone, needs to be discontinued. Check with the banks. Anything jointly held, can be continued.
- Since uncle is no more, try to minimize the number of accounts now that your mom will hold from now onward.
- Do not forget to update the nominee details wherever your father's name is mentioned as the nominee. These could be bank accounts/policies/RD/FD etc. held by your mom or you or anyone else. For example, I had kept my father's name (and at some places with my mom's name) in almost everything (e.g. company's PF, gratuity nominees) as the nominee, so I had to update the nominee details. Emotionally, that was a difficult thing to do, deleting his name...
- You would be needed to share uncle's Aadhaar card copies a lot at various places. So, keep his bio-metrics in Aadhar app/website locked. Do not share any Aadhaar or his bank OTP with anyone over phone.
I will be adding more points as and when it comes to my mind.