What to do next

What to do in the first five days

In many cases the hospital or GP involved will help you with this.

• Notify the family GP
• Register the death at a registrar's office
• Find the will - the deceased person's solicitor may have a copy
• Begin funeral arrangements
• If relevant, complete form BD8 given to you when you register the death and send to the local Jobcentre Plus or Social Security
• If the deceased was receiving any benefits or tax credits, advise the offices making the payments
• If there is a will, contact the executor if this isn't you (usually nominated) to enable them to obtain probate
• If there is no will - decide who will sort out the deceased's affairs
• Contact the Probate Registry to apply for letters of administration

Who else to contact

As well as informing people who are close to the person, in many cases you'll need to close down accounts, or cancel or change insurance details, subscriptions or direct debits.

Here's a list to help you keep track:

• Relatives and friends
• Employer
• School
• Solicitor / Accountant
• Government organisations
• The relevant tax office
• National Insurance contributions office if they were self-employed (to cancel payments)
• Child Benefit office (at latest within eight weeks)
• Local authority if they paid council tax, had a parking permit, were issues with a blue badge for disabled parking, or received social services help, attended day care etc.
• UK Identity and Passport Service
• DVLA
• Car registration documents

Financial organisations

• General insurance companies - contents, car, travel, medical etc
• Any other company such as rental, hire purchase or loan agreements
• If the deceased was the first named on an insurance policy, find out if you are still insured
• Pension providers / life insurance companies
• Banks and building societies
• Mortgage provider
• Hire purchase or loan companies
• Credit card providers / store cards

Utilities and household contacts

• Landlord or local authority if they rented a property
• Any private organisation / agency providing home help
• Utility companies if accounts were in the deceased's name
• Royal Mail, if mail needs redirecting
• TV / internet companies with which the deceased had subscriptions

The registrar will give you the following

• A certificate for burial or cremation (known as the 'green form'), unless the coroner has given you an order for burial (form 101), or a certificate for cremation. These give permission for the body to be buried or to apply for the body to be cremated. You should take this to the funeral director.
• A cerifical of registration of death (form BD8). This is for benefit claim purposes only. Fill in the certificate, if relevant, and contact Jobcentre Plus or The Pension Service.
• Leaflets about bereavement benefits and income tax for surviving husbands, wives or civil partners, where appropriate.

If you register the death away from the area where the death took place, the registrar will send this information to you.

The death certificate

The death certificate is a certified copy of what is written in the death register. The registrar can let you have a death certificate if you want one, but you will have to pay a fee.

You may need a death certificate for the will and for any pension claims, insurance policies, savings bank certificates and premium bonds.

You may want to ask for more than one copy of the certificate straight away, as the price increases if you need one later on. The registrar may not be able to give you all the copies straight away and may ask you to call back or ask you to pay an amount towards postage so that they can send them to you.