Decedent Asset Discovery Checklist

What's Inside

A field guide for the Texas personal representative who has to build the inventory from scratch. Mail capture, document sweeps, IRS Wage & Income transcripts, deceased-person credit reports, signature cards, the non-probate asset audit, county deed and appraisal-district searches, life-insurance and pension locators, federal death-benefit sweeps, transfer-agent searches for orphan stock, and digital-asset preservation under Texas Estates Code Chapter 2001 — every system that surfaces a hidden asset, in the order an executor should run them. Authored by the probate team at WG Law.

1. Step 1. Forward the decedent's mail and enroll in USPS Informed Delivery as personal representative — every monthly statement, dividend notice, property-tax bill, premium notice, and tax-form 1099 that arrives over the next 12 months identifies an asset or a creditor

2. Step 2. Sweep the home for paper trail — file cabinets, desks, safes, freezer envelopes, refrigerator magnets, address books, calendars, prior-year tax binders, checkbook registers, the inside of the family Bible, and any deed box or fireproof folder

3. Step 3. Open and inventory every safe deposit box on file — present Letters Testamentary or a court order, photograph the contents on entry, and keep a bank-by-bank box log to support the 90-day Inventory, Appraisement, and List of Claims

4. Step 4. Pull the last 5 years of personal tax returns and order IRS Wage & Income Transcripts (Form 4506-T as personal representative) — every 1099-INT, 1099-DIV, 1099-B, 1099-R, 1099-MISC, 1099-NEC, and Schedule K-1 surfaces an account, a brokerage, a pension, or a business interest

5. Step 5. Pull a deceased-person credit report from Experian, Equifax, and TransUnion and place a 'deceased — do not issue credit' flag — the report exposes every open and closed loan, credit card, mortgage, HELOC, and authorized-user account, and shuts down identity theft

6. Step 6. Request signature cards and account-opening documents from every bank and credit union the decedent touched — signature cards reveal joint ownership, payable-on-death (POD) designations, transfer-on-death (TOD) registrations, and rights of survivorship that move assets outside the will

7. Step 7. Audit non-probate assets separately from probate assets — POD bank accounts, TOD brokerage accounts, IRA/401(k)/403(b)/457 beneficiary designations, life-insurance beneficiaries, jointly-titled property with survivorship, revocable trust assets, Lady Bird Deeds, and Transfer on Death Deeds bypass the will entirely and need separate notice

8. Step 8. Audit the last 24 months of bank and credit-card statements line by line — every recurring debit reveals a hidden subscription, storage unit, gym, club, web service, lease, brokerage sweep, or insurance premium worth either claiming as an asset or canceling to stop the bleed

9. Step 9. Search county appraisal district records (DCAD, CCAD, TAD, TCAD) and county clerk deed records in every Texas county the decedent ever lived, worked, or inherited from — capture real property, mineral interests, royalty interests, oil-and-gas leases, easements, and recorded liens

10. Step 10. Pull TxDMV title histories for every vehicle, boat, trailer, motorcycle, and RV the decedent owned — repeat for any prior state of residence and check for unreleased liens that block transfer

11. Step 11. Run the NAIC Life Insurance Policy Locator (eapps.naic.org/life-policy-locator) and the MIB Group locator — both surface forgotten individual and employer-issued policies the family never knew existed

12. Step 12. Run the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation 'Find an Unclaimed Pension' search (pbgc.gov/search-all) for any defined-benefit pension from a former employer that may have terminated decades ago — orphaned pensions are one of the most-missed estate assets

13. Step 13. Run the federal death-benefit sweep — Social Security $255 lump-sum death benefit and any survivor benefits, Veterans Affairs (VA) burial and survivor benefits, Railroad Retirement Board, OPM/FEGLI for federal civilian employees, and SGLI/VGLI for military service members

14. Step 14. Search Texas Comptroller's ClaimItTexas.gov, the unclaimed-property database of every state the decedent lived in, MissingMoney.com (multi-state), and TreasuryHunt.gov for matured U.S. savings bonds and uncashed federal checks

15. Step 15. Search the major stock transfer agents — Computershare, EquiniTi/AST, and Broadridge — for orphaned share certificates, DRIP plans, and direct-registration positions that never made it onto a brokerage statement

16. Step 16. Identify business interests through the Texas Secretary of State business search, the Comptroller franchise-tax account lookup, K-1s on prior tax returns, partnership and LLC operating agreements, and any buy-sell, shareholder, or deferred-compensation agreement held by counsel or the CPA

17. Step 17. Inventory specialty accounts the family forgets — HSAs, FSAs, 529 plans (the decedent may be the owner, not the beneficiary), ABLE accounts, employer ESPP and RSU vesting schedules, deferred-comp plans, and any prepaid funeral or burial trust

18. Step 18. Map digital assets and crypto — email, password manager, exchange accounts (Coinbase, Kraken, Gemini), hardware wallets, domain registrations, online businesses, PayPal/Venmo/Zelle balances, and reward-point balances; preserve email and 2FA access under Texas Estates Code Chapter 2001 before any account is closed

19. Step 19. Schedule a flat-fee consultation with WG Law before filing the 90-day Inventory, Appraisement, and List of Claims — an incomplete inventory is the single most common source of executor personal liability and the single most common reason heirs sue an executor years later