Registering a death

[CacklingWithLaughter]

I lost a close relative on Friday. Everywhere has been shut since so I can’t make any enquiries until tomorrow. Can anyone provide me with an indication please on how long it takes to register a death and on average how long it takes for the funeral after the registration.

Thanks.

You need paperwork from the hospital to take to the registrar. You can make an appointment to see them - we got it pretty quick.

funeral depends on slots at the crematorium/church etc.

we rushed it through pretty quickly.

As soon as the hospital has the paperwork ready you can book an appointment to register the death.
within days- once the death is registered the registrar can send the forms needed to the funeral directors of your choice.

@CacklingWithLaughter sorry for your loss. Once you get the certificate and take it to the registrar they will be able to guide you through the process. There is a government website which tells all the relevant departments (pension/benefits etc). So you should only have to do it the once. Sorry for your loss x

It changed last year and I understand that the death certificate is sent to the medical examiner who tells you when you can book an appointment with the registrar. That might be a few days or longer. Once you’ve registered the death you can talk to your chosen funeral director and the time to the funeral depends on how busy it is and when you want it to be.

If your relative had a Funeral Plan in place, gather together the paperwork for that.

If they had a complicated estate, eg accounts with several banks, life insurance, premium bonds etc, get a couple of extra copies of the death certificate from the Registrar at the time of registration, as it will be easier than applying for extra copies later. Some financial institutions want the actual certificate, not a photo copy.

Don't close their bank account down too promptly, as there may still be monies to pay in to it, especially if they have been ill and unable to keep on top of admin.

Sorry for your loss, it's a difficult time.

The death has to be registered in the town or city the deceased died in. Funeral subject to holidays and availability. Enough copies of the death certificate and send everything registered post.

In terms of how long until the funeral, there are lots of 'it depends'

• Do you want a specific crematorium ? (or burial if that applies)
• Do you want to avoid particular days?
• Do you have a lot of people to co-ordinate / make the date work for ?
• Do you mind what time of day it is ? (If you are happy with a slot first thing in the morning, that is easier to get as many prefer an afternoon slot, for example)
• Are you a member of a faith group and have your own person to conduct the service?
• Do you want a simple / standard ceremony or do you want some less common things (horse drawn hearse, or procession to include an old fire engine or a 100 motorbike riders, etc)?

I'm sorry to learn of your loss.

Very likely you can contact the Registrar for the area of death online, as soon as it opens, and supply the details you have of the deceased, such as DOB, DOD, name, address, place of death, etc. They should give you a reference number. This will help when you go to make the appointment.

In order to register the death you need the Medical Certificate of Cause of Death from the hospital or attending doctor. There may be a delay in obtaining this, specially over a Bank Holiday period.

This is where having made initial contact with the Registrar's office is helpful as, strictly speaking, you must, by law, register a death within 5 days, not working days, but actual 24 hour periods. This is scarier than it sounds, specially if you are already upset by the death. In fact, you are at the mercy of whoever issues the Cause of Death certificate, and IME, a doctor doesn't rush back from a couple of weeks holiday to do so. But if you've informed the Registrar's office, you can relax knowing you've demonstrably done what you can. I can find no indication of anyone, ever, being prosecuted for late notification of a death, but the regulation can worry an emotional bereaved person.

Once you've managed to make an appointment and registered the death, you will get a free certificate allowing cremation or burial ('green form'), which you need to give to the funeral director to give to the crematorium or burial authority. You will also get a Death Certificate (about £11, I think). It's good advice to get plenty of Death Certificates at the time of registering the death. They are cheaper then and much less hassle than going back to a place of sad memories to get more.

Using a funeral director makes everything much easier as they can deal with all the authorisations and fees. They will also know how busy the local crematoria are, or who to contact about a burial. In some places the soonest cremation can be several weeks away, others, days. But a bit of a delay gives you time to spread the word around anyone you think might want to attend. The funeral director will be able to suggest celebrants and suitable places for a wake if you need that.

One of the hardest things is assessing how many people will come to the funeral, specially for a younger (more living friends) or particularly sociable person who died. You may want to have a service sheet printed and/or provide refreshments at a wake and try to judge how many. Again, from experience (I hugely underestimated!), people are happy to share sheets and a decent venue will understand and whistle up more sandwiches or at least more tea and coffee, if necessary.

Also be prepared for weird questions like “is the deceased radioactive” “do they have a pacemaker” (important if it’s a cremation as it will explode). “Did they die of a certifiable or notifiable disease” etc.
when registering my uncle’s death recently we had to take his birth certificate and marriage certificate too. Get plenty of copies of the death certificate.
sorry for your loss.

As PP said, it changed last year. Now the person certifying the death has to send a report to the medical examiner. In my case this took a couple of days before the medical examiner phoned me to check that I was happy with the stated cause of death. As soon as the ME puts it on the system you are then able to book an appointment with the registrar to get the death certificate. Until you have that you can't book the funeral, although our funeral director allowed us to get a provisional date.
For us it was 2.5 weeks from the (expected) death until the funeral. For another relative recently it was about 7 weeks, so it varies enormously depending on the circumstances & where you are.

Exactly this. Everything seems to take an age but depends where you are. 5 weeks from death to funeral is pretty normal here.

My mum’s funeral was 20 days after her death. It took a good couple of weeks to organise fully, although I know we could potentially have done it more quickly.

Registering the death was straightforward once we had clearance from the coroner to say no post mortem needed. The actual appointment was booked for the day after we called and took about half an hour.

One useful thing we did was to ask for several copies of the death certificate so that we could send them to various places that needed them for paperwork at the same time. We got 7 copies and it was helpful to have them all.

You can actually book the funeral before registering the death, but you must have the death certificate by the time the funeral takes place.

This is a good point. You can get a funeral director to hold a slot for you for a few days in my experience and then confirm it once you have the documents to go ahead. This might be helpful if you really need to be able to schedule the funeral date quickly.

This is not true.
We registered a death recently that occurred in the north, in south Wales. The death certificate says where the death actually took place though.

I think it depends where you live tbh. My Mum died Mon 7/4. We met with a funeral director to arrange her funeral 2 days later but are not seeing the registrar to get her death certificate until tomorrow which will be 16 days after. It was the soonest appt we could get at any registry office in our local area. You can't really do anything without a death certificate like the Government 'tell us once' service, claim any life insurance or funeral plans etc. And the cremation we have planned for 2 weeks time is dependent on having her death certificate obviously.