What to Do When Someone Dies: A Money Checklist

When someone dies, the money tasks arrive in a fairly fixed order, and the deadlines are short. The death normally has to be registered within five days in England and Wales, and within eight days in Scotland¹. Registration is done at a register office by appointment, and it is the step that unlocks everything else: the funeral, the bank accounts, the benefits and the estate.

The good news is that you do not have to contact dozens of organisations one by one. Research by the Department for Work and Pensions found that each bereaved person had to contact dozens of different organisations after a loved one died², which is exactly why two free services exist. Tell Us Once reports the death to most government departments in a single step, and the Death Notification Service tells participating banks and building societies at the same time³.

This page walks through each step in the order it usually arises, with the deadlines, the costs and the free services that do some of the work for you. It sits alongside more detailed guides on registering a death, Tell Us Once, paying for a funeral and what happens to benefits when someone dies.

The first hours

Before any paperwork, the death has to be formally confirmed. If the person died at home or somewhere other than a hospital, their GP practice is the first point of contact, and this is normally done within a few hours⁴. A doctor confirms the death, and from there the process of registration can begin. If the death happened in hospital, the hospital staff handle the confirmation.

In some cases the death is referred to a coroner in England and Wales, or the procurator fiscal in Scotland, for example if the cause of death is unclear. That can delay registration, and it changes how Tell Us Once works, which is covered later in this page. Nothing else in the checklist can start until the death is confirmed and you have the medical certificate that allows you to register it.

Registering a death: five days, or eight in Scotland

The law says you need to register a death within five days in England and Wales, including weekends and bank holidays⁴. In Scotland the deadline is eight days from the date of death⁸. The same eight-day rule is confirmed in Scottish government guidance, which also notes that in some cases it may not be possible to register within eight days, for example if the death has been referred to the procurator fiscal⁸.

Registration is free. What you pay for is the death certificate itself, and the number of copies you order, which is covered below. If you miss the deadline because of a coroner's referral or another unavoidable reason, the register office will explain what to do; the deadline exists so that the death is recorded promptly, not to penalise bereaved families.

Where to register and how long it takes

You can go to any register office to register a death, but it is best to use one in the area where the person died, because then you will be given the documents you need that day⁹. If you use a different office, the details still get registered properly, but the paperwork may take longer to reach you, which can hold up the funeral arrangements.

The appointment itself should last about 30 minutes⁴. You do not need to bring the person's passport or driving licence, though any documents about them that you have to hand, such as their NHS medical card or birth and marriage certificates, help the registrar record the details accurately. The most important document is the medical certificate of cause of death from the doctor or hospital, without which the death cannot be registered.

What the register office gives you

At the end of the appointment the registrar gives you three things: a certificate for burial or cremation, known as the Green Form, which the funeral director needs; a unique code for Tell Us Once; and a death certificate, which you have to pay for⁹.

The Green Form is what allows the funeral to go ahead, so it is worth passing it to the funeral director promptly. The Tell Us Once code is the subject of the next sections. The death certificate is the document you will use again and again over the following weeks, which is why the number of copies you order matters.

Death certificates: how many copies, and why buy them early

Many organisations insist on seeing an original death certificate, and photocopies are not accepted². Because banks, insurers, pension providers, land registries and benefit offices each want their own copy, it is worth requesting as many as 10 original copies when you register the death, even if it costs a bit extra². Scope's advice is blunt on the timing: try to buy extra copies while you are at the register office, because they cost a lot more if you buy them later⁴.

Who will ask for one:

• Creditors, when asking for a debt to be written off. For a creditor to consider writing off the debt of someone who left no money or property, you will usually need to give them a copy of the death certificate¹⁰.
• Bereavement benefits. A claim for Bereavement Support Payment must be supported by originals of your marriage or civil partnership certificate and the person's certificate of registration of death¹¹.
• Property and equity release firms. If you were joint tenants in England, your solicitor will need a certified copy of the original death certificate to take the deceased person's name off the title deeds¹².
• Banks, to release money for the funeral. You can take a copy of the death certificate and a copy of the funeral bill to the bank to ask for funds from the account to be released¹³.

The reason for buying early is simple arithmetic: each organisation holds its copy while it processes the estate, and with only one or two certificates you spend weeks posting the same document back and forth. The dedicated guide to death certificate copies covers the current costs in each nation.

Tell Us Once reports a death to government in one step

Tell Us Once is a service that lets you report a death to most government organisations at the one time¹⁴. The government's own description is that it "allows you to inform all the relevant government departments when someone dies"¹⁵, and it works by passing the information you give at registration to each department, so you report the death once rather than many times¹⁶.

The departments it covers include HM Revenue and Customs, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Passport Office, the Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency and the local council¹⁷. Tell Us Once will notify the DWP to cancel benefits including Universal Credit¹⁶, and it will also contact Social Security Scotland where relevant, as well as the local council to cancel the person's Blue Badge or Housing Benefit¹⁸.

The service is free⁴. It is available throughout England, Scotland and Wales, but not in Northern Ireland, where the relevant organisations have to be told about the death directly⁶. Once the death certificate is received, government organisations and the local council need to be informed as soon as possible¹⁹.

How to use Tell Us Once with your reference number

There are two ways to use it. Either the registrar completes the Tell Us Once service with you during the registration appointment, or they give you a reference number so you can use the service yourself online or by phone¹⁹. A local registrar gives each person a unique reference number and the phone number for Tell Us Once¹⁶.

The deadline matters: you must use the service within 28 days of getting your unique reference number⁶. Before you use it, gather the person's details, including their National Insurance number, driving licence number and passport number if you have them, plus details of any benefits and the local council services they used.

If the person who died was receiving benefits, the official guidance is to use the Tell Us Once service to report it²⁰. For Universal Credit specifically, if you have used the Tell Us Once service, you do not need to contact the Department for Work and Pensions separately²¹.

Where Tell Us Once does not apply

Tell Us Once covers government bodies only, so banks, building societies, insurers, pension providers and other private firms are outside it entirely³. There are also situations within government where it does not reach:

• Northern Ireland. Tell Us Once is not available there, so you will need to let all relevant organisations know about the death yourself⁶. For example, you need to tell the Northern Ireland Pension Centre when someone has died so they can stop paying their State Pension and Pension Credit²².
• An inquest. If you cannot register the death because an inquest is underway, you can still ask a registrar for a unique reference number, but you need an interim death certificate from the coroner first⁶. The wider condition is that the death must have been either registered, or reported to a coroner with a final or interim death certificate⁶.
• Student loans. The Student Loans Company is contacted by calling or writing to it directly to tell them about someone who has died²³.
• HMRC and the estate. Tell Us Once tells HMRC about the death, but if you are handling the estate and cannot call the helpline, you must fill in form P1000 to tell HMRC who is dealing with the money, property and possessions of the person who died¹⁵. HM Passport Office also has its own form, 'What to do when a passport holder dies', which you fill in and post¹⁵.

The government publishes a full list of the organisations to contact if you cannot use the Tell Us Once service¹⁵. When a single Universal Credit claimant dies, there are no further payments due, and for the purposes of the award calculation the death is treated as if it occurred at the beginning of the assessment period¹⁶, which is how overpayments are avoided for the family.

Benefits and pensions after a death

Benefit payments will not automatically stop when someone dies. After registering the death, you need to tell the government to stop their benefit payments¹⁸. Tell Us Once does most of this, but your own benefits may need to be reassessed after a death, for example if you had a joint claim with the person who died or were receiving Carer's Allowance for them⁶.

Pensions are a separate job. When someone dies, pension money usually goes to their beneficiaries, whom the pension provider is told about, usually through an expression of wish form the person completed while alive²⁴. If the person died after starting to take their pension, beneficiaries inherit any lump sums they took from the pension and did not spend, and they may have to pay inheritance tax on that amount²⁴.

Different pension types behave differently:

There is also a tax point to be aware of: beneficiaries receiving death benefits from a pension can be jointly liable with the personal representatives for paying any tax due²⁷. The guides on pensions and tax after a death go into this in more detail.

If you were married, in a civil partnership or cohabiting with the person who died, you may qualify for Bereavement Support Payment. The conditions are set in legislation: the person must be under pensionable age when their spouse, civil partner or cohabiting partner dies, ordinarily resident in Great Britain or a specified territory, and meet a contribution condition²⁸. A claim needs the original certificates, as noted above¹¹. In Scotland, bereavement benefits are handled through the same framework, and the registrar explains Tell Us Once when you register¹⁴.

Telling banks and other firms about the death

Government departments are only half the picture. Banks, building societies, insurers, utility companies and lenders each need to be told, and the free Death Notification Service exists to make this easier. It lets you inform participating banks and building societies of someone's death by completing just one notification form²⁹, and many banks and building societies are signed up to it³⁰. You provide the person's full name, date of birth, date of death and last address on the free online portal³, and no account is needed to use the service⁷.

Two features of the service save real work. Banks will try to identify all the accounts of the deceased, not just those you are aware of, which helps if the person had accounts nobody knew about³. And banks will also check the General Records Office to confirm the death, so you are not chasing paperwork for every institution³. Because the Death Notification Service deals with financial institutions only, and Tell Us Once deals with government bodies only, you need both to cover as many bases as possible³.

*A notification letter to a bank, with the death certificate attached, is what starts the process of freezing and closing the account.]

Firms have duties once they know. Under the FCA's consumer credit rules, where a lender knows or becomes aware that a consumer is deceased, it must take all reasonable steps to communicate instead with a personal representative of the consumer's estate or the beneficiaries of the estate³¹. Water companies and other utilities follow similar expectations: the Paying Fair Guidelines expect clear website advice on reporting a death, an agreed timeframe for responding to bereavement enquiries, a bereavement customer care team and a direct contact channel³².

Debts need handling with care. A creditor will usually need a copy of the death certificate to consider writing off the debt of someone who left nothing¹⁰. Under the Consumer Credit Act 1974, where a regulated agreement is fully secured at the date of death, the creditor is not entitled, by reason of the debtor's death, to take enforcement action; if the agreement is partly secured or unsecured, enforcement is only possible on an order of the court³³. On mortgages, the FCA has confirmed that a simple notification of the death of a party is not an application to change the borrower, so a surviving joint borrower need not be sent a new illustration³⁴. The guide to debts after death covers this in full.

If the person died abroad

If the death happened outside the UK, you register it according to the regulations of that country, and a local death certificate can usually be used in the UK⁹. That means the UK registration step may not apply at all, but the notifying work still does: banks, pension providers and government departments still need to be told, and the Tell Us Once route is not available because the death was not registered here.

For a UK passport holder, fill in the form 'What to do when a passport holder dies' and send it to the address on the form¹⁵. Funeral costs work differently too. Funeral Support Payment in Scotland normally requires that the person who died was ordinarily resident in the UK³⁵, and the usual rule is that the person must have lived in the UK and the funeral must be held in the UK, with some exceptions³⁶. Where there are travel costs for a funeral outside the UK, Social Security Scotland requires a local authority cost comparison and a case query with its Decision Support Team³⁷. If the person who died had any cash or assets, the case has to be referred to the debt team, because funeral costs can be recovered from the estate³⁸.

Free help and support

You do not have to pay for help with any of this. Where a person dies in NHS care and there are no relatives or friends willing or able to arrange the funeral, the NHS may arrange and pay for it³⁹. Funeral costs themselves, and the help available with them, are covered in the guides to paying for a funeral, Funeral Expenses Payment and Funeral Support Payment in Scotland, and the comparison of a pre-paid funeral plan against saving yourself.

For the estate, the guides to being an executor, applying for probate, confirmation in Scotland and probate in Northern Ireland set out what each involves, and paying a professional to deal with an estate explains when paid help is worth considering. Emotional and practical support, including free helplines, is listed in free bereavement support, and the wider life events guide covers the money side of the other big changes in life.