ADVISING THEAuthorities and Other Organisations
Contents
Who to Inform Following a Death
The person’s death must be reported to various government organisations. This needs to be done as soon as possible after receiving the death certificate.
In most areas of the UK you can use the Government’s ‘Tell Us Once’ service, which will inform all the relevant departments for you. Often the Registrar will fill in the form to access this service, or they will provide a reference number for your to use online or by phone.
If this service is not available where the deceased lived or you do not have a Tell Us Once reference number, you will need to contact the various government organisations yourself (see below). For more information on how to do this, see the Government website.
- Department for Work and Pensions (DWP Bereavement Service)
- HM Revenue & Customs (HMRC)
- National Insurance (NI) Contributions Office
- Child Benefit Office
- Tax Credit Office
- HM Passport Office (HMPO)
- Personal, Workplace and Armed Forces Pensions
- Vehicles and Driving Licenses (DVLA)
- Social Security Scotland
Informing Other Relevant Organisations
Here is a list of other organisations you may need to inform. Not all will be relevant to you, and it is not exhaustive, but you can add to it as necessary. Remember, some of these will want to see original or certified copies of the Death Certificate.
- employer
- lawyer
- accountant
- financial adviser
- banks
- PayPal
- bit coin
- credit card provider
- insurers (household, mortgage, life, health, car, travel, pet)
- mortgage provider
- DVLA (change of name & apply for new tax)
- car loan
- utility provider (electricity, gas, water)
- Office of the Public Guardian (to cancel or alter powers of attorney)
- landlord
- mobile phone
- landline telephone
- internet
- newspapers & magazines
- milk
- social media (Twitter, Facebook, etc)
- TV and media subscriptions (Netflix, Amazon Prime, etc)
- books, audio books, music subscriptions
- on-line gaming subscriptions
- on-line photo/data storage (ICloud, etc)
- home security systems
- antivirus (Norton, etc)
- gym or healthclub membership
- loyalty cards
This list appears on our What to Do When Someone Dies checklist which you can print off and use to help you keep track of who you have informed.
At a later date, you may want to use the Bereavement Register to help stop unwanted mail.
Another useful free resource is Life Ledger which allows families to close, freeze or switch all of the accounts connected to the deceased from one place.
