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I had gone to the Mass.gov website and looked up the “what to do when someone dies” help file. I filled out the form for my wife I found there under the “Probate Court” section and sent it off to the address on the form thinking I had helped.
It came back yesterday with only a note saying “you shouldn't send this stuff to us.”
I checked the form, yep it came from the same office the state says to send that stuff too. Re-reading the fine print I found those people are only supposed to get a copy, not the whole from. You’ve got to bring the form to the court or pay a lawyer to do it.

Today, I left work at noon, met up with my wife and went downtown to the brand new (less than 2 years old) Worcester courthouse. It was very, very cold. With the wind whipping through the city it was an effective 4 degrees F out there.
The new building has new security. You can’t just go through the metal detector, you have to empty everything out of every pocket and take off your belt. (But, unlike airports, not your shoes.)
I had not expected to have to empty my pockets so that took a while. I apologized to the guard who watched me fill up an entire X-ray bin with the things in my pockets.
“Don’t worry, I’m here all day,” he told me.
Then, up to the probate department. That’s part of “family court”.
We were only 4th in line and still waited a bit while some folks were filing restraining orders against spouses and suing to get custody of kids. (One woman seemed very surprised to be told she actually required proof she was the mother of the child she wanted to be given custody of.)
When we got to the front of the line we were confronted by the most bored sounding man I have every encountered. (Note, I’m not saying helped by...)
“Why are you using this form?” he asked. “That’s not the right form.”
“It is the form on the state government web site,” I said.
“Well, it’s not the form you need,” he said. “You need this other form if her estate was less than $15,000 in value.”
“So, we fill that out and give it to you?”
“No,” he said. “You fill it out and give it to me some time ten days from now. You can’t file until the deceased has been dead 30 days.”
“So, we can’t do it now?” my wife asked.
“No,” he said.
“Can we get the forms for her estate being more than $15,000?” I asked.
“You don’t want those,” he said. “They’re a lot more work.”
“Well, we don’t know how much her estate is worth yet,” I said. “I’d like both sets of forms just in case.”
“Why don’t know know what the estate is worth?” he asked me.
“Because the banks won’t tell us until we get the filing from this office,” I said.
“To file here, you need to tell us the estate’s worth,” he said.
“So, we can’t find out how much the estate is worth until we file. And, we can’t file until the estates worth is known?” I asked.
“If it is worth more than $15,000 it is much more work,” he said, handing me two forms. “Newspaper ads must be run.”
“I don’t think it will matter,” I said. “I think it is going to turn out to be a negative number.”
“How can it be a negative number?” he asked.
“She died owing more money then she had,” I said.
“Come back in 10 days,” he said.

We did take care of some banking we could, and that took the rest of the afternoon.
When we got home there was a notice from the state of MA saying that they wanted to “recover all the money that had been spent on Jean’s medicare expenses.” So, they also want to know what her estate was worth so they can take anything left to pay her old medical bills.
The form started with “have you filed with probate yet? If not, why not?”
So I wrote “We tried to file and we were told to wait until 30 days had passed. We will try again after the 27th.”

I can’t say I’m happy that the state is being so very unhelpful with all this, and has demanded any extra money when it’s done.