By Mike Malvick (Greatland Reviewer/LadybugKids)
It is something most people do not want to talk about, but a little individual planning can provide a lot of clarity regarding what happens to a cacher’s caches and trackables upon the cacher’s death. Geocaching HQ’s policy is very clear that caches and trackables can only be adopted to another player with the express permission of a family member, as the cache remains the property of the deceased cacher’s (decedent’s) estate. Therefore, it falls to each individual cacher to include their geocaching-related property in their personal estate plan.
In the event of a cacher’s death, the following occurs:
- Unless Geocaching HQ hears from the family requesting otherwise, no immediate action is taken. The community grieves when another community member passes away, and their natural wish is to protect the decedent’s legacy. Often there is nothing wrong with the caches and they can continue to be found.
- If the decedent had friends in the community, those friends sometimes have a connection to the cacher’s family. When the time is right, the friends may decide to contact the family to ask what they would like to see happen with the caches. There is no urgency to do this. The caches will be all right and the family has more important things to worry about during those first few months.
- Sometimes Geocaching HQ never hears anything from family and friends and all activity on the account ceases. In this case, the local Reviewer archives the caches with the normal sweeping process as the caches fall into disrepair. The community will have had time to grieve and fix up the caches if they are going to do so, and the caches can quietly be archived.
The following options are available to the decedent’s family:
- Archive the listings, so that the locations are opened up to other community members.
- Work with the local caching community to maintain the caches. The local Reviewer will coordinate with Geocaching HQ if the Reviewer knows that a cache(s) will be well maintained by a community and Geocaching HQ will help determine if this is a viable option based upon communication with the decedent’s family.
- Adopt the listing(s) to a member of the decedent’s family.
- Adopt the listing(s) to a member of the caching community.
- A family member takes over the decedent’s account.
The decedent’s family may coordinate the adoptions, but if the family is not involved in the game, it is generally less stressful for them to give permission for the caches to be adopted and have Geocaching HQ take care of the rest. Assuming permission is given, Geocaching HQ can quietly transfer ownership as the local Reviewer notifies Geocaching HQ of people who want to adopt specific geocaches.
EarthCaches and Virtual caches cannot be community maintained because someone must review for correctness the answers submitted to the listing’s owner. They may be adopted out with approval of the decedent’s family.
Decisions about trackables belonging to the decedent must be made by the decedent’s family since those trackables are presumed to be part of the decedent’s estate. The family will physically have possession of the type of geocoin collection that is kept in display cases, or display books, etc. In these cases, the family can contact Geocaching HQ if they wish to have any of the activated collection transferred over to a new account.