Registering a death

Registering the death is the administrative pivot of the whole process. Until it is done, the funeral cannot be finally booked, most organisations will not act, and probate cannot begin. After it is done, almost everything else becomes possible.

It is free, it takes about half an hour, and it is done by appointment at a register office.

The deadline

The clock runs from the date of death, but it is effectively suspended if a coroner (or in Scotland the procurator fiscal) is involved, and it is not enforced against families who are waiting on paperwork that has not arrived. Nobody has ever been prosecuted for being late because the hospital was slow.

What has changed in England and Wales

Since 9 September 2024, every death in England and Wales that is not investigated by a coroner is independently reviewed by an NHS medical examiner before it can be registered.

In practice this means:

• The doctor completes the medical certificate of cause of death and it goes to the medical examiner, then electronically to the register office. You no longer collect it and carry it there yourself.
• A medical examiner or their officer will usually ring the next of kin to explain the cause of death in ordinary language, and to ask whether you have any concerns about the care the person received. That question is meant seriously and is worth answering honestly.
• Registration cannot be booked until that has happened, so wait to be told the paperwork has arrived before making an appointment.
• The old doctors’ cremation fees — “ash cash” — were abolished at the same time in England and Wales. They still exist in Scotland and Northern Ireland.

Who can register

In rough order of priority:

1. A relative of the person who died.
2. Someone who was present at the death.
3. An occupant or official of the building where the death occurred (a care home manager, a hospital official).
4. The person arranging the funeral — meaning the executor or next of kin, not the funeral director.

A funeral director cannot register a death for you anywhere in the UK. It has to be a person connected to the deceased, in person, at the register office.

What to take

• Details of the person who died: full name (and any previous names, including a maiden name), date and place of birth, date and place of death, last address, occupation, and whether they were receiving a state pension or any benefits.
• If they were married or in a civil partnership: the full name, date of birth and occupation of the surviving spouse or civil partner.
• Any documents you can find: birth certificate, marriage or civil partnership certificate, NHS medical card, driving licence, passport. None of these is compulsory and the registration will proceed without them — take what you have and do not tear the house apart looking for the rest.
• Some proof of your own identity.

What you come away with

Certified copies of the death certificate. These are the documents banks, insurers, pension providers, share registrars and the probate service will demand, frequently refusing photocopies. They cost around £12.50 each in England and Wales.

How many? Most families need between four and ten. Count the banks, building societies, pension providers, insurers, investment accounts and the Land Registry, and add two. Buying more on the day costs no more per copy than ordering later, and ordering later means another wait at the worst possible time.

The green form (in England and Wales, formally the certificate for burial or cremation). This is the registrar’s authority for the funeral to proceed, and it goes straight to the funeral director. Without it, no crematorium or burial authority in England or Wales will do anything. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own equivalents.

A certificate for benefit purposes, where relevant, for the DWP.

A Tell Us Once reference number, in most of Great Britain — see Tell Us Once . Set it up at this appointment. It is free, it takes fifteen minutes, and it replaces weeks of individual letters to government departments.

If a coroner is involved

You cannot register until the coroner releases the death. What you can get, and should ask for, is an interim certificate of the fact of death — most banks, insurers and employers accept it, and it lets a great deal proceed while the investigation continues.

If there is an inquest, registration happens after it concludes, which can be many months. That does not prevent the funeral: the coroner issues an order for burial or a certificate for cremation separately, usually much earlier.

Then what

• Tell Us Once — one conversation instead of twenty letters.
• Choosing a funeral director .
• Probate and paperwork — the long tail.