The Death Notification Service for Banks

If someone who has died held accounts at more than one bank, you do not have to write to each one separately. The Death Notification Service is a free online service that tells a number of banks, building societies and financial institutions at the same time about a person's death, using one notification form¹. You do not need an account with it to use it, and there is a helpline on 0333 207 6574, open 08:30 to 17:30 Monday to Friday, excluding bank holidays¹.

The practical saving is paperwork. You provide one death certificate, and the service confirms it for the bank you are notifying and for any other participating organisations, so you are not sending a copy to each one³. The banks that take part should then contact you within 10 days to let you know the next steps⁵.

It is not a search service and it does not cover the government. It tells banks you already know about, and it sits alongside Tell Us Once rather than replacing it³. If you are at the start of the paperwork, our checklist for what to do when someone dies sets out the order things usually happen in.

What the Death Notification Service does: one form, several banks

The service exists to inform participating banks and building societies of someone's death by completing just one notification form². It was created to tell a number of banks, building societies and financial institutions at the same time, which is the point of it: one notification instead of a letter to each provider¹.

It is described by the banks that use it as a free, external website that lets you notify all participating banks and building societies at once⁵. Bank of Scotland calls it a free service that allows you to tell other banks and insurance companies of a death at the same time⁶. Royal Bank of Scotland puts it the same way: if the person who died held accounts with other financial providers as well as with RBS, you can use the Death Notification Service to let them all know at once⁷.

You do not have to be the executor. A solicitor, a next of kin or an executor of the estate can notify a provider that an account holder has passed away⁸. That matters in the first weeks, when probate has often not been granted and the person doing the ringing round is not necessarily the person named in the will. If you are the executor, our page on being an executor covers what the role involves.

One limit is worth knowing before you start. The service notifies the organisations signed up to it. It does not find accounts, and it does not replace the separate process each bank runs for releasing money once it has been told.

Which banks and building societies take part

The list of participants changes as firms join, so the service's own site is the reliable check on the day. Among those named in provider and news material are Nationwide, Bank of Scotland, Barclaycard, Barclays, Halifax, Lloyds, Santander, NatWest and Royal Bank of Scotland⁹. A separate report lists Barclays, First Direct, HSBC, Nationwide, NatWest and Santander among those signed up¹⁰.

Building societies and other lenders appear too. Birmingham Midshires points customers to the free Death Notification Service for contacting other banks¹¹. The Mortgage Lender works with the Death Notification Service to ease the process for its customers³.

If the person held an account with a bank that is not on the list, you notify that bank directly. The same bereavement process applies; it just is not routed through the shared form.

What happens next: contact from each provider within 10 days

Once notified, the other financial providers update their records and should contact you within 10 days to let you know the next steps⁵. Nationwide puts its own version of that timescale in working days: when you have told it about the death and shown the death certificate, it sends a letter, and you can expect to hear within 10 working days⁵.

What each provider then does depends on the account. Banks will usually freeze an account once they are notified of the death¹⁴. Money may still be released for funeral costs, and a bank may temporarily stop access to the account after a death while still releasing money for that purpose¹⁵.

Some deadlines elsewhere in the process are tighter than the 10 days the banks work to. Registering a death must be done within five days in the usual case¹⁶. If the person was receiving a pension under an attachment or earmarking order, a representative needs to inform the pension scheme within 14 days¹⁷. Where pension scheme administrators must tell the personal representative the value of unused pension funds or death benefits, the deadline is within 4 weeks of receiving the death notification¹⁸.

Where the Death Notification Service does not reach

The service covers participating financial firms. It does not cover government, and it does not cover providers that have not signed up³. Two gaps catch people out.

The first is government. Tell Us Once is a service that allows the public to report a death to most government organisations once only¹⁹. It is not available in Northern Ireland, so there you need to let all relevant organisations know about the death yourself²⁰. It is also unavailable if the person died while living abroad²¹. In Northern Ireland, the Bereavement Service on 0800 085 2463 offers relatives a single point of contact for reporting a death to the Department for Communities and helps them access any other benefits they may be entitled to²².

The second is accounts you do not know about. The Death Notification Service tells banks you name; it does not trace accounts. My Lost Account can be used to trace old accounts with other providers, as well as with NS&I¹³. That is the route for an account you suspect exists but cannot place.

Tell Us Once and the Bereavement Register: the services that work alongside it

Three services do different jobs, and it helps to keep them apart.

Tell Us Once reports the death to government. It allows you to inform all the relevant government departments when someone dies, and you speak to your register office about it, which passes information about a death to most government organisations²⁵. It is a single form that tells all government bodies about the death, requires the death to be registered first, and needs a unique reference number²⁶. It is free²³. When you register the death you are issued a certificate for burial or cremation, known as a Green Form, a unique code for Tell Us Once, and a death certificate, which you pay for²⁷. Use it if someone dies while receiving benefits²⁸.

The Death Notification Service covers the banks. It should be used in conjunction with Tell Us Once, and the two are not linked³.

The Bereavement Register deals with post. Its purpose is stopping direct mail being sent to the deceased, and it removes their details from mailing lists and stops most advertising mail²¹. For a specific creditor that keeps writing, sending a copy of the death certificate may be enough to end further contact²⁹.

If something goes wrong

Two things are worth watching after a death, and neither is caused by using the notification service itself.

The first is identity theft. A sign is your credit rating going down even though you have not missed any payments and do not have an account in arrears³⁰. The practical defence is to check credit card and bank statements for suspicious activity and monitor your credit report³¹. The service is built so that the notifier does not need to complete identity checks, so using it does not put a search on your file³².

The second is debt in the wrong name. If a creditor pursues you for a debt that was not yours, our page on what happens to debts when someone dies explains where responsibility sits. Sending a copy of the death certificate to the creditor may be enough to end further contact²⁹.

If a bank does not respond, or responds in a way you think is wrong, the firm's own complaints process comes first. Free, impartial help is available from MoneyHelper and from the bereavement charities, and our page on free bereavement support and helplines lists where to go.