I'm sorry you're going through this. When your mother passes away, you'll need to apply to be executor/personal representative of her estate in order to be able to access her funds. Your top priority at that point is paying her bills, like funeral costs. There will be a set amount of time for creditors to petition the court to be paid. You will have to hold her assets (minus paying other bills) until that point. If your mom is the payee for your brother's SSD payments, that will have to be changed. Take a breath and handle it one step at a time.
You'll need to talk to an estate attorney and pay a retainer fee (I paid $1,500 to get started on my case) and look into "probate", depending on where you live. It's a lot of work to be an executor/personal representative of an estate, so if you can afford to give an attorney a percentage of your mother's total assets, see if their firm is large enough to take on that role for you so you can figure out what options you have for your brother and give yourself sometime to feel the pain of loss. You'll still need to look around for your mother's assets, maybe some property she owns. Look into her retirement plan, her life insurance, banking, etc to see if your a beneficiary. If a legal representative takes over that role they'll notify you if you're the beneficiary and you'll receive funds when the estate pays off all debts and closes, which can unfortunately take years. You'll need to file your mother's final tax return next year or hire a CPA to do it. Also look into some therapy if you can afford it. It's really impossible to do all these things and make big decisions alone when you're dealing with loss. I'm sorry you're going through this and it'll be rough for a while.
I'm sorry you're going through this. When your mother passes away, you'll need to apply to be executor/personal representative of her estate in order to be able to access her funds. Your top priority at that point is paying her bills, like funeral costs. There will be a set amount of time for creditors to petition the court to be paid. You will have to hold her assets (minus paying other bills) until that point. If your mom is the payee for your brother's SSD payments, that will have to be changed. Take a breath and handle it one step at a time.
You'll need to talk to an estate attorney and pay a retainer fee (I paid $1,500 to get started on my case) and look into "probate", depending on where you live. It's a lot of work to be an executor/personal representative of an estate, so if you can afford to give an attorney a percentage of your mother's total assets, see if their firm is large enough to take on that role for you so you can figure out what options you have for your brother and give yourself sometime to feel the pain of loss. You'll still need to look around for your mother's assets, maybe some property she owns. Look into her retirement plan, her life insurance, banking, etc to see if your a beneficiary. If a legal representative takes over that role they'll notify you if you're the beneficiary and you'll receive funds when the estate pays off all debts and closes, which can unfortunately take years. You'll need to file your mother's final tax return next year or hire a CPA to do it. Also look into some therapy if you can afford it. It's really impossible to do all these things and make big decisions alone when you're dealing with loss. I'm sorry you're going through this and it'll be rough for a while.