Anyone used the Death Notification Service?

[hardheadedwoman]

Hi

My friend died a couple of weeks ago and I am trying to assist her adult children who don’t live in the UK.

The estate is likely to be very small (no property) and is spread across 5 institutions. They probably won’t need to apply for Probate because of this. I’m not an executor of the will as the named executor has passed away.

I will be writing to them with details of the accounts and their numbers. Then I came across the Death Notification Service.

Please could you let me know the pros and cons of using the DNS vs contacting the institutions separately?

Many thanks in advance

I can think there would be any downside.

Thank you. It did seems simplest but do you know what happens next, do the institutions contact the person who signs up to finalise closing down the accounts?

I used this service and it was so helpful for me.

I can't think of any downside. I found the admin load overwhelming, and this service just reduced it.

Thank you Elastic that is good to know

I used it and it worked well for official government agencies like DWP etc but didn't do anything about banks etc so there was still lots to do. It did help but wasn't a catch all.

IIR it was the registrar that put it into effect when issuing death cert.

I think you will have problems acting on behalf of family as friend without official status.

I found the banks very difficult but the ombudsman helped a lot there after several months of beating my head off a red tape nonsense wall so maybe point the family in that direction too.

Best do everything in writing as much as possible so as not to have to deal with callous call centre ignorance too much. Also gives a record of communication. Even online chat function is better than phone usually because it gives you a copy of the conversation.

They do everything for you, notify the relevant people and are quite open if they can’t. They gave me different numbers to contact when they couldn’t do.

As for probate I thought my mum had nothing of any real value, and as my dad survived her I thought everything would automatically go to him anyway. However we still had to do a probate form but when you value property for that person you only do a rough auction estimate. Property as in everything they own... clothes furniture crockery etc not just bricks and mortar. Which I was very surprised at.

Is that the same as 'Tell Us Once'?
If so, it worked really well when my DF died.
The only thing I would advise is to get several copies of the death certificate.

We used it when my DF died, was very useful.

However, it is not infallible. A relative found his passport had been cancelled and when he phoned the passport office to ask why, they told him it had been cancelled by this service. Assume someone had died with the same name.

Thank you all that is very useful

Fortunately I am not acting on behalf of the family, just trying to give them some pointers as they are in the US and feel a bit at sea

I just looked up Tell Us Once - looks good, seems to be an equivalent but for government agencies?

We used the tell us once service once we had registered my dad's death, they notified all the government departments, plus the council tax. My advice is get as many copies of the death certificate as you can as you need them for banks, life insurance, land registry etc.

Not all counties use "tell us once". When my mother died her local authority didn't for some reason. It is usually triggered by the registrar I think, or at least they give the information.

The DNS is different from Tell-Us-Once. I opened an account yesterday with DNS as I lost my mother a few days ago. I was able to advise only one bank of one account. Try as I might I am unable to add further details regardless of the fact that the website says I can. This is the last thing you want when bereaved. I shall now notify people by writing a letter, putting it in an envelope, sticking a stamp on it - and Mr Postman can deliver it in his own good time. This DNS site is atrocious.

@emzed1944 sorry about your Mum, lost mine last month too... shit isn't it?
Just got to somehow muddle through this
Take care of yourself x