Who to notify when someone dies, and in what order

Rather have the link by email? One email, the link back to this page, nothing else.

§3The thing most people get wrong

Tell Us Once reaches government. It does not reach your money. It notifies HMRC, DWP, the Passport Office, the DVLA, the council, Veterans UK and Social Security Scotland. It does not reach banks, building societies, insurers, utilities or telecoms. Those still have to be told one by one.

This is the single most common misunderstanding about the service. People use it, tick it off, and assume the notifying is done. Weeks later the direct debits are still running and the bank has not been told.

The Death Notification Service closes part of that gap. One free submission reaches every participating bank and building society. But it notifies; it does not close anything. No account is frozen, no balance released, no policy cancelled. Each institution then contacts you, and the rest of the work is the same work.

There is also no Tell Us Once if the person lived in Northern Ireland, or lived abroad permanently when they died. In Northern Ireland the equivalent is the Bereavement Service on 0800 085 2463 — one call that forwards the details to any department that paid them benefits.

gov.uk and deathnotificationservice.co.uk, read 11 September 2026. Northern Ireland number per communities-ni.gov.uk, read 11 September 2026.

The Tell Us Once walkthrough, with its own free 6-page checklist →

§6Notifying is not releasing

You do not need the grant to tell anybody. Notifying an organisation never requires a grant of probate. You can tell every bank, insurer, utility and provider on this page that someone has died, today. They will freeze the account, stop the marketing, and start their own internal process.

What needs the grant is releasing money above the institution's own figure, and transferring anything. Those are different acts, and they come later.

So the sequence that works is this. Notify early and widely. Several organisations will tell you at that point exactly what they will want later, which is worth knowing before you need it. Then go back with the grant only where the balance actually requires one.

One thing is usually possible straight away without a grant: most banks will pay the funeral director's invoice directly from the deceased's account on sight of the invoice and the death certificate, even while the account is otherwise frozen. Nobody in the family needs to be out of pocket for that.

gov.uk and each institution's own page, read as dated in §5.

§9What to say when you ring

Four facts get you through almost every call. The full name of the person who died. Their date of death. Their address. An account or policy number, if you have one. Then say who you are and how you are connected — executor, administrator, next of kin, or a relative acting for the family.

Ask two things before you hang up. What they need from you next, in writing if they can. And their reference number for the case. The second call is always easier than the first if you have it.

Nobody expects you to have the estate straight at this stage. Bereavement teams do this every day, and they are usually the most patient department in the organisation.

Have to hand

How many certificates: order several at registration. Banks, insurers, pension providers and solicitors will each usually want an original certified copy, and they do not agree with one another about it. Ordering later costs more in Northern Ireland — £8.00 each at registration against £15.00 for the first copy afterwards.

This page is the order. The directory is the detail. Every organisation named here has its own entry in our bereavement contacts directory — the route it publishes, the documents it will ask for, the channel it actually wants, and the date we last read its page.

Questions, answered plainly