widow and finances, etc

[great canyon 0]

The beneficiary, a PR lost her husband suddenly. He was taking care of all the papers and finances includig a 2nd mortgage. In his will, she found out he left her everything, including the will to be his executor and gave her power of attorney. But she's thinking if she should accept or not these responsabilites because she is not at all knowledgeable about how he dealt with his finances: besides one joint account, she doesn't know the balances of the other accounts. (he was transactions online).

Because his suddent death, he didn't left much money in the joint acct and she cannot pay the bills (he transfered little amounts because they were economizing).

Questions:

in preparation to call the mortgage agency and announce the sad news including to know if they would delay the time of the payment of this month until the whole situation gets fixed, what else should she be aware of, or ask to leander. They seem to be strict on the payments dates, but she doesn't have info in cases of death...strangely.

She recalls she signed an agreement at the time when the contract was made that she agrees that the house may be taken away. But of what she understood of the many technical pages, she didn't find anything in the case of the death of the borrower,again.

She would like to keep the house in the memory of her husband, make payments agreements with the company, restore it, etc. but she is a student, finishing this year and will work sometime after.

She read somewhere that the change of name costs fees, or that they may decline the new contract because of her unemployement status, etc...

In the short term, because she has no money, can she use what's left in the joint acct to survive?

It seems she has to petition to the probate court and may get waived (being the sole beneficiary). She has not many friends (no time to socialize when studying hard) to borrow some moeny to pay some bills until then. this freaks her out.

As a PR should she inform the Uscis that she is a widow and where? Or this happens only at the previous stages.

Are there any other cases like this one? or any bit of elightnment would be appreciated.