Clear Money Guide
Start with the tool
Open the inputs first, then use the guide outline to check assumptions and sources.
Updated July 31, 2026. Quick answer: after a death, a set of clocks starts running that nobody tells the family about — and several are use-it-or-lose-it. The unforgiving ones: 9 months to disclaim an inheritance (no extensions), 9 months to file the estate tax return, 6 months for the alternate-valuation snapshot, and a cluster of inherited-retirement-account dates in the following calendar year. Enter the date of death and get the actual calendar:
The calculator
The three deadlines families actually miss
The disclaimer window closes first in practice — because using it requires knowing it exists. A disclaimer is the only post-death planning tool that can redirect an inheritance (to the next beneficiary in line) with no gift-tax consequence, and it dies quietly at nine months — or the moment the heir accepts a benefit from the asset. The rules, plainly.
Portability is the expensive one. A surviving spouse who skips the estate tax return because “we’re under the exemption” forfeits the deceased spouse’s unused exemption — potentially millions of sheltered dollars — unless the simplified late election window is used. Why it is not automatic.
The year-of-death RMD rule changed in 2024 and most articles still state the old one. The current deadline.
The state-law clocks — probate filing and creditor claim windows — run on separate, state-specific schedules; the cost side is at probate cost by state and the executor fee calculator.
The ordered version, for your situation: the estate settlement roadmap asks six questions — state, will, how the house is titled, surviving spouse, rough values — and returns the steps in the order they actually have to happen, including whether your state’s small-estate shortcut legally reaches the house.
Two things a power of attorney will not do: it ends the moment the principal dies — the bank that did not know is protected, the agent who did is not — and if it is a springing document, somebody has to certify incapacity first, which is where they usually fail.