Police broke in and found FIL dead, what happens next?

[Matchingcollarandcuffs]

Poor DH found out today that his dad's neighbours were worried for him so they called the Police who found him, they think he'd been dead since yesterday.

He's spoken to Coroners Office who are waiting to hear from the GP as to whether the death was unexpected, before deciding if a PM is needed. Can we tell banks/benefits etc if no death cert yet?

The flat was rented, well over 100 miles from us, DH is sole NOK and barely any other family (DH aunt and cousins), but was pretty much estranged from his dad as parents split when he was young.

Does anyone have any idea what happened next? And how long do you have to clear out rented accommodation(private)? No idea who landlord even is, do we need to pay to make the damage good?

We've been through our mum's deaths before but they were expected and paperwork in place, this is completely different.

Finally, if Police know it's him will DH have to identify the body?

Sorry if these are all odd questions, it's just hard

The qualifying week is the week beginning from the third Monday in September.

https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/benefits-entitlements/winter-fuel-payment/#:~:text=Winter%20Fuel%20Payment.-,Am%20I%20eligible%20for%20Winter%20Fuel%20Payment%3F,the%20third%20Monday%20in%20September.

"If you were born on or before 25 September 1957, you're likely to qualify for a Winter Fuel Payment in the winter of 2023-24, as long as you were living in the UK during the qualifying week. The qualifying week is the week beginning from the third Monday in September."

I'm sorry to hear about this. My dad died in May and there was an inquest - the system is different in Scotland but it held up getting the death certificate. Most banks etc will want to see the death certificate before doing anything. In dad's case it only took another 4 or 5 days.

I'm in Scotland too but my relative's banks were absolutely fine about freezing the accounts without a death certificate. Think death cert took about 10 days to be released.

So very sorry for your DH, my condolences. When my husband died suddenly on our lawn, I used this to help me through the 'sadmin'.

What to do when someone dies: step by step - GOV.UK (www.gov.uk)

If he doesn’t have a funeral plan you could always do a direct cremation. It’s basically a cremation without the service and you are then given the ashes. Both my parents want this as they find crematorium services very depressing and just want us to scatter the ashes and then go for a meal at local pub! It’s usually the cheapest option too.

This happened to me too. My Dad died unexpectedly in his sleep and was found about 36 hours later by a relative when he'd failed to show up at a church event he was expected at and someone at the church contacted the relative. I live abroad so it complicated matters somewhat.

Someone will have to identify the body - so that will have to be your DH unfortunately. My relative did the official identification in Dad's case.

I really can't remember much of the details after that. I don't know how I got through it. It was 10 days before I could get back to the UK to deal with the death. During that time the GP was contacted and as they hadn't seen him for more than 2 weeks he had to have a post mortem. The cause of death was pretty obvious to be honest as he was obese and had diabetes and high blood pressure and he had a massive heart attack. But it still had to go to post mortem because despite all of the pre-existing conditions the GP had not had an indication that a heart attack was "imminent".

The post mortem took ages to be completed. I had contacted an undertaker in the meantime to make sure that Dad could be collected as soon as the post mortem was complete and be taken to the funeral home. I think the undertaker dealt with paperwork.

And somehow or other, when I arrived back in the UK, there was some kind of paperwork which I then took to the registry office to register the death and get the official death certificates. Then I was able to start sorting through finances, insurance policies and so on and so forth.
The registry office gave me a form called "Tell us once" which I completed and this deals with all kind of government organizations - such as benefits/council tax and so on. Might be something like that in the area your FIL is from.

I paid for the funeral myself, knowing that there was money in the estate to cover it once everything was sorted.

Dad had a solicitor who did probate but he was dodgy as fuck and tried to rip me off once the estate had been settled. But making reference to a previous misdemeanour he had committed and that he was on some kind of probation soon got my bill for his services halved.....

Such a long post sorry..... will continue in another one.

You also asked about the rental flat.
I contacted the landlord straightaway and a payment had just gone out for the next month's rent so we agreed on a month's notice, which gave me ample time to sort the flat. Well, it was very stressful but still doable.
The landlord insisted on the damage to the door being taken out of the deposit. I never got the deposit back in the end - it was all but impossible to get it back. I can't remember why but in the end I gave up. The solicitor was supposed to be trying to get it back but couldn't and I didn't want to be paying him any more money to be trying to get a 500 pound deposit back.

I contacted all of the utility companies to get those stopped - ie. at the point when the rental contract was to end. Those bills were then paid for out of the estate by the solicitor.
Companies have bereavement lines - so when you want to stop BT for example, look through the website or google to find the phone number for the bereavement line. These are less busy than the central switchboards and when someone picks up the phone they already know that you are dealing with a death and are very sympathetic and nice. In other words, you're not really faced with having to explain, yet again, that FIL died etc.

If the flat has been secured by the police you will likely have to go to the police station to collect a key or to arrange for them to open up if they have put an additional lock of some description on the door.

If you have any more questions, feel free to ask. It's a horrible situation. But somehow you do get through it, step by step. And I found that people were really lovely and helpful.

Thank you, am hoping the downstairs neighbours also have the same landlord as don't even have their details, don't expect there's a will, money in accounts etc etc.

Sorry so many of you have gone through similar, but you have helped me (and thus DH) loads

I am so sorry that this has happened to you - and I just want to stress what others have said

1. Funeral expenses: If there is enough money in Your FIL's accounts then funeral expenses come off his accounts first before any other expenses. If there are insufficient funds in his accounts to pay his funeral costs, then your DH will be responsible for paying the funeral directors IF HE IS THE ONE WHO ORGANISES THE FUNERAL. Direct Cremation is the cheapest way to deal with this as a PP said
2. Other expenses - you are not personally liable for any money owed to anyone by your FIL. If there is insufficient funds after any funeral expenses then that is too bad. If there is some, but not enough for everything, there is an order laid down as to how to deal with that. The Gvt website is a great place to start
3. You should notify all the regular payees as soon as you can, even if you don't have the death certificate: ie. All utilities, including phone/broadband suppliers etc, council tax, energy etc. Anything at all where regular payments from his accounts are made.
4. Also tell the bank(s) so that they put a freeze on his accounts
5. If he is in receipt of benefits you should tell them as soon as possible too, to prevent overpayments
6. The Landlord does need to be told. You will need to speak to them to find out how long they will give you to empty the flat. A month is quite common but it may vary depending on the type of rental he had

It all seems very daunting, but you'll get through - just take it a step at a time. Sending virtual hugs

Thank you all, again

DH has taken the day off to start making phone calls etc (his dad recently moved so doesn't even have an address for him, no companies will even entertain phone calls without being able to pass id checks-hoping his aunt will have it).

I’m sorry you’re having to go through all of this.

Does he actually want to do this for his dad? He knows he has the option to say ‘no’ doesn’t he?

I don’t know how old your FIL was … but when my dad died suddenly last year and the GP (who’d only seen him the previous week) was reluctant to give a cause of death the coroners office told me as he was over 80 they’d accept ‘old age’ if we were prepared to accept that and no post mortem would be needed.

Yes he does, I think to spare his aunt who had to sorry out the deaths of both parents single-handedly as the dad/brother too hopeless.

There may yet be a will with a random unknown toDH executor tbf, just think v unlikely.

That’s very decent of him, he sounds like a good man.

There’s a government one-stop website where once you tell them, all government departments will be informed.

We had two weeks to empty my mother’s cottage. You do have to take everything out - we had charity shops collecting and then we had to use a house clearance firm to move the white goods. WE’ve had phone calls about the tv on the wall - we couldn’t get it off - but I told the charity who were the landlords that they could do what they liked as we couldn’t remove it. Likewise, the curtains. I just wasn’t climbing a step ladder.

Even if he is named as executor he still has no obligation whatsoever to sort anything out. You can't be made to be executor just because a person who is now dead said they wanted you to be. Completely agree though, if there's nothing then he should stay very well out of it.

I don’t think your DH will have to identify the body if there are neighbours who knew him and are prepared to do it. A family friend identified my brother’s body, as my Mum couldn’t face it.

If it comes to it I'd go rather than DH if he couldn't face it - not high up my list of things to choose to do but the least I could do really

I'm sorry for the loss of your FIL. I've been through this with the police finding the body. Basically, the coroner will decide what has to happen and will inform you. When they have completed their investigations and are ready to release the body to you for whatever rites you want to follow, they will call you and instruct you to contact a funeral director. The funeral director came to visit us when we contacted them and discussed arrangements, whether we wanted embalming, funeral details, transport, everything basically. They picked up the body, prepared it for viewing, and took care of everything until burial had taken place. They made it so easy at a difficult time. They also provided us with a copy of the death certificate.

Maybe it works differently in your jurisdiction, but that's how it happened for us.

Should add - someone will probably have to do a formal identification, if this hasn't already happened. I did it for our family member, since I was on site when the police arrived, but I know others who have had to go to the coroner's office to do it. Police may take statements too, just to establish facts around the death.

An update - just in case this thread ever helps anyone else in the same situation.

DH spoke to the Coroners - as Police found him (peacefully in bed thankfully) and found his passport they have done the id - this should suffice unless there's an inquest

They will be doing a PM because GP didn't expect imminent death despite him being in poor health - turns out they should know the cause of death by Monday (in our bit of London this would be weeks - impressed how quick it will be)

Body currently with local funeral directors - will be taken to Hospital for PM and then returned to either same or different FDs - due to how he was found and his ill health Coroner expects cause of death to be natural causes (his own dad had a massive heart attack and died in bed one morning) so they should be able to issue a death cert Monday so DH can get ball rolling re booking a funeral.

Coroners have said not to travel until they have the cause of death/know if there's going to be an inquest - so DH hoping to travel early next week to go and meet landlady and get paperwork etc from flat - his aunt will be around too to go through stuff together - I suspect nearly everything will be either donate or chuck tbh

I cannot stress enough how helpful and supportive you've all been - I am quite jiffled myself (mainly knowing how hard this is going to be on poor DH) so having an outlet here I can share things so I can help prop him up has been invaluable. Plus all your experiences too (although awful so many have been through so similar)

It's taking the piss - it's not a grieving relative's job to spruce up your property, landlord should be ashamed.

My mum's housing association were very demanding, took us round the property pointing out any damage etc and telling us we had to clear it out at our expense. Your DH hs no responsibility to this random landlord's property so tell him to just concentrate on clearing out sentimental items, and anything legal that he may need.

I'm sorry for your loss.

We had a friend die recently and it was along time before a death certificate was issued and it took longer than expected to get a notice of death, and she was financially in a right pickle however most companies we spoke to were fantastic and were happy for us to email / post a copy of the certificate as we had already made contact on the phone.

You wont be responsible for any debts or charges and please question this if anyone claims you are. (I may be doing the landlord a disservice here but you can see where I'm coming from...)

Depending on your circumstances you may be able to apply for a grant to help cover funeral costs, I'm think this is on the .gov website.

Yes, absolutely the landlord's job to hire a skip and a couple of blokes and throw everything in it and pay for the disposal of somebody else's belongings at their own expense 🙄

It is the executor's or personal representatives moral and legal duty to deal with it and the estate, if any, pays.

If there is no money in the estate of your FIL and you can't afford to pay for a funeral, there is the option of a "public funeral", whereby the council arrange a simple funeral. If you Google it it's easy to find.
We've got a friend who's worried sick as her mum is on end of life care and she can't afford a funeral, hence how I know about it. However, you need to make it perfectly clear that you are not going to be the point of contact/ payer of bills regarding a funeral, if that's what you want. I'm really sorry if that's not the case, just trying to present a different option.