What to do when someone dies in the UK: step by step

Someone close to you has died and you are the person who has to deal with it. Most of what is in front of you can wait. Three things cannot: the medical certificate, registering the death, and telling the government departments that pay or collect money in their name. This guide takes those first and puts the rest in the order you will meet it. The words it uses, coroner, registrar, next of kin, are each explained in a paragraph in the resource centre.

If your loved one died outside the UK, or has to be taken home from the UK to another country, the order is different. Start with repatriation, step by step instead.

Step 1: the first hours, and who you call

What happens in the first hours depends on where the death happened.

At home, and it was expected. Ring the GP practice, or 111 outside surgery hours. A doctor or a senior nurse will come to confirm the death. There is no hurry to move your loved one afterwards. When you are ready, a funeral director will collect them, at any hour. We explain the whole of that day in what happens when someone dies at home.

At home, and it was not expected. Ring 999. The police will attend, because that is the procedure for any death that a doctor cannot account for, and the death will be reported to the coroner. That is not an accusation of anything. It means the certificate will come from the coroner’s office rather than from a GP, and the timetable in step 2 stretches. What happens when the coroner is involved covers it.

In hospital. The ward will tell you what happens next and the hospital’s bereavement office will handle the medical certificate. Your loved one is cared for in the hospital mortuary until a funeral director collects them, and the bereavement office will tell you when that can happen. There is more in what happens when someone dies in hospital.

In a care home or a hospice. The staff will contact the GP or the doctor on duty, and they will usually ask you which funeral director to call. You do not have to decide on the spot.

Step 2: get the medical certificate of cause of death

Nothing can be registered without this certificate, which the funeral trade calls the MCCD. A doctor who knew your loved one, or who treated them in their final illness, fills it in.

In England and Wales, since September 2024, a medical examiner reviews every certificate before it goes to the register office. The examiner’s office will ring you to talk through the cause of death and to check you have no concerns. Once that is done the certificate goes to the registrar electronically, and you will be told that you can book your appointment. You may never hold the paper yourself, which surprises families who remember doing this before.

Scotland and Northern Ireland skip the examiner: the certificate goes straight from the doctor or the hospital to the registrar. A Scottish family should ask which registration office received it, because that is where the appointment is booked.

If the death has gone to the coroner, there is no MCCD. The coroner either releases the death for registration once a post-mortem has answered the question, or opens an inquest, in which case the coroner’s office issues an interim certificate so that the funeral and the estate can go ahead. The medical certificate of cause of death, explained goes through the form line by line.

Step 3: register the death

This is the step with the hardest deadline, and the one families ring us about most.

In England and Wales the five days now run from the day the registrar receives the certificate from the medical examiner or the coroner, not from the death, so the clock starts when the examiner’s office rings you. In Scotland and Northern Ireland the days run from the death, and a referral to the coroner or the procurator fiscal pauses them. Most register offices work by appointment. Book it the day you are told the certificate has gone through.

Take with you whatever you can find of the following. The registrar can proceed without some of it, but every gap is a question you will have to answer from memory.

• Your loved one’s full name, and any earlier names, including a maiden name
• Their date and place of birth
• Their last address and their occupation
• The full name and occupation of their spouse or civil partner, living or not
• Their NHS number, if you have it, and their National Insurance number
• Whether they were receiving a state pension or any other benefit
• Your own identification

You leave the appointment with three things. The death certificate itself, and the certified copies you buy there. The certificate for burial or cremation, which people call the green form, and which the crematorium or cemetery needs before anything can be booked. And a reference number for Tell Us Once, which is step 4.

How to register a death sets out the appointment in more detail, and how to get a death certificate covers what to do if you need more copies later.

Step 4: use Tell Us Once

Tell Us Once is a free government service. With the reference number from the registrar you tell the government about the death one time, online or by phone, and it passes the information to HMRC, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Passport Office, the DVLA, the local council and the state pension. It stops payments that should stop and starts the ones you may be owed.

The reference number is valid for 28 days, so do this in the week after registration. It is available in England, Scotland and Wales. It is not available in Northern Ireland, where the Bereavement Service tells the benefit and pension offices in one call and the rest, HMRC, the DVLA, the Passport Office and the council, are told separately.

It does not reach banks, insurers, employers, landlords or utility companies. Those are step 7. How Tell Us Once works lists exactly who is and is not covered.

Step 5: decide on the funeral

Once the death is registered you have the green form, and the funeral can be arranged. There is no legal deadline for the funeral itself. In practice most take place two to three weeks after the death, and a delay while the family gathers from abroad is normal.

The decisions are fewer than they look:

1. Burial or cremation. If your loved one left written wishes or a funeral plan, that settles it. If not, the decision belongs to whoever is arranging the funeral, usually the next of kin or the executor.
2. A service or not. A traditional funeral has the coffin present at a ceremony. A direct cremation has no service at the crematorium; the family holds whatever they want to hold afterwards, with the ashes, in their own time and place. Direct cremation or a traditional funeral sets the two beside each other.
3. Who arranges it. You do not have to use a funeral director, but nearly every family does, because the funeral director collects your loved one, cares for them, handles the crematorium’s or cemetery’s paperwork and books the date.

Whoever you choose should give you a written price before you commit to anything. A traditional funeral in the UK costs several thousand pounds and varies widely by region; how much does a funeral cost in the UK has the current figures and where they come from. A direct cremation with us is £1,295, and that is the price on the invoice.

Step 6: check what help you can claim

Two payments exist, and both have deadlines.

Funeral Expenses Payment. If you are arranging the funeral and you receive a qualifying benefit, such as Universal Credit, Pension Credit or Housing Benefit, the Department for Work and Pensions can pay towards the cost. It covers the cremation or burial fees in full and up to £1,000 towards the rest. You have six months from the funeral to claim, and you can claim before the funeral has happened. How to claim the Funeral Expenses Payment is the guide to have open while you fill in the form.

Bereavement Support Payment. If the person who died was your spouse or civil partner and you are under state pension age, you can claim a lump sum and up to 18 monthly payments. Claim within three months of the death to receive the full amount.

Neither is means-tested on your savings. The Funeral Expenses Payment is deducted from anything you receive from the estate, if there is one; the Bereavement Support Payment is not.

Step 7: tell everyone else

Tell Us Once covers government. Everyone else has to be told by you or by the executor, and each of them will want a certified copy of the death certificate, which is why you bought six.

The usual list, in the order that matters:

• Banks and building societies, which will freeze any account in your loved one’s sole name and keep joint accounts running
• Pension providers, private and workplace
• Insurers, for life, home, car and travel policies
• Their employer, or the organisations that paid them
• Their landlord or mortgage lender, and the utility and phone companies
• Their GP, dentist and optician, if the hospital has not already done so
• The Bereavement Register, which stops the direct mail

Who to notify when someone dies is the full list, with what each organisation will ask for.

Step 8: the will and the estate

Find out whether there is a will. Look in their papers, ask their solicitor, and check with any bank where they held a safe deposit box. The will names an executor, and the executor deals with the estate.

If the estate is more than a small sum, or includes property, the executor will need a grant of probate before the assets can be released. If there is no will, the rules of intestacy decide who inherits and who can apply to administer the estate. What happens when someone dies without a will explains those rules.

None of this is urgent in the first week. Banks and HMRC expect it to take months. Putting your affairs in order is the short list for anyone who, having done this once, wants to spare their own family the same.

What cannot wait, and what can

The medical certificate, the registration and Tell Us Once are the three with a clock on them, and they are done inside a fortnight. The funeral happens when your family is ready. The money and the estate run on for months and no one will chase you in the first weeks.

If you are unsure at any point which of these is yours to do, ring us. We answer at any hour, and we will tell you where you are in the list even if you never use us for anything else.