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Elderly parents

Father passed away, how to prioritise/order organisations to contact.

12 replies

falstaff1980 · 04/10/2023 15:54

Feeling a bit overwhelmed at the moment, my mother has mild cognitive impairment, and my sister is also unwell, so sorting out everything is all on me.

I've done this tell-us-once thing for government stuff, submitting it two days ago.

I've also done one of the banks where my mother was a joint account holder, luckily this is the one that was paying most of the household direct debits and standing orders, so I hope they should continue being paid. My mum also has enough in her own accounts to cover the funeral.

Still got other banks, building societies, and NS&I to contact for my dad's solo accounts, which all need transferring to my mother. I am listed as an executer on my dad's will, along with mother and sister.

What about other orgs? Does it really matter if the water company, telephone and broadband provider continue in my dads name for a couple more months?

Car insurer told me we have 30 days grace before the policy in father's name (with mother as named driver) expires, but as I understand it with tell-us-once the DVLA will be cancelling the road tax - I assume a letter from them will arrive with a reference number to re-tax it?

OP posts:
Houseplanter · 04/10/2023 15:57

Firstly I'm sorry you've lost your dad OP.

My first thoughts are.. make sure house insurance is aware and mum is covered, if the policies in dads name.

Do you need probate before you can deal with dad's bank accounts?

namechangedforthisnone · 04/10/2023 16:00

I've recently had to help my mum with this and unfortunately Broadband, insurances, electric, water etc need to be changed over in to your mums name.

Most companies were helpful and it wasn't too much stress to get things changed over.

I'm sorry for your loss.

CyberCritical · 04/10/2023 16:00

Sorry for your loss OP.

Age U.K. have lots of really useful guides to walk you through what needs doing.

Take a look at the 'who do I need o tell' section of this one.

www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/legal-issues/what-to-do-when-someone-dies/

Alstroemeria123 · 04/10/2023 16:01

Re DVLA and road tax - if your father owned the car, be aware it needs to be transferred into someone else’s name before it can be taxed or a SORN issued (we ended up doing a very quick sale due to this). So I’d be inclined to get that sorted out quickly, particularly if anyone wants to continue driving it.

PermanentTemporary · 04/10/2023 16:17

I'm so sorry.

My experience was that if you ring up and say it's about a bereavement, a lot of companies have specialist teams and put you straight through. It wasn't bad.

I made a pile of letters/things to be dealt with by my usual chair, with stamps and envelopes, and just picked one up whenever I felt strong enough.

EmmaEmerald · 04/10/2023 16:26

NoMor · 04/10/2023 16:21

The Death Notification Service No need to call round everyone.

Was about to say, this came in after my dad died so don't know if it's good but worth a try.

re changing names on utilities, I found they were fine when I let them know three or four months later, except a famous TV company who tried to tell me off, got a sharp rebuke, then tried to sell me an add on for the TV package!

yes DVLA cancelled the road tax but called to confirm that's what I wanted.

ShellySarah · 04/10/2023 16:28

namechangedforthisnone · 04/10/2023 16:00

I've recently had to help my mum with this and unfortunately Broadband, insurances, electric, water etc need to be changed over in to your mums name.

Most companies were helpful and it wasn't too much stress to get things changed over.

I'm sorry for your loss.

I don't mean to gatecrash but what do you do when the elderly person lived alone. What happens to bills?

Schadenfreudunsure · 04/10/2023 16:30

I'm not sure about that Death Notice service that No Mor posted because it looks like a private company created by Equitini so I'm not sure I'd be that keen to be handing over personal data to them myself. I'd never heard of it and it only deals with member organisations anyway who are mostly banks listed here https://www.deathnotificationservice.co.uk/whoCanINotify.ofml

For governmental bodies - like Local authority/HMRC tax/DVLA etc once you have a death certificate you can use the official government Tell Us Once service and it lets you choose if you don't want to notify some of them

https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/organisations-you-need-to-contact-and-tell-us-once

Once you tell the DVLA, I believe (but you'd need to double check this) that if car tax is in the name of the deceased person, once you tell them they treat the car tax as ended so you can't drive the car until it's retaxed in another persons name.

What to do after someone dies

The steps you must take when someone dies - register a death, report a death with Tell Us Once, coroners, funerals and death abroad.

https://www.gov.uk/after-a-death/organisations-you-need-to-contact-and-tell-us-once

Schadenfreudunsure · 04/10/2023 16:32

Sorry -@falstaff1980 I know you said you'd done the government tell us once, posting for anyone else reading this thread.

Alstroemeria123 · 04/10/2023 16:42

I tried to use the non-government death notice one but didn’t find it terribly useful. Most companies I needed to contact weren’t members and I ended up needing to talk to the member companies separately anyway so it didn’t even save time and hassle.

MMAMPWGHAP · 04/10/2023 22:50

I would say it might be worth getting at least one of the utilities swapped to your mum’s name ASAP so that you then have a form of id for her that you can use if needed. (Rather than a bank statement which personally I never like sending).

Also for anyone else reading this it’s a good idea to split the names on utility bills so each person has something that can be used as id.

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