The Essential Steps to Registering a Death
- You must attend a death registration appointment in person.
- Registration cannot happen until the Medical Certificate for Cause of Death (MCCD) has been issued and checked by a Medical Examiner. Officially you need to register the death within five working days from when you receive notification from the Medical Examiner – in practice it can sometimes take longer than this to get an appointment at some register offices.
- Most registrars require you to complete an online form and they will then call you to arrange an appointment, others will simply call you to arrange a date. You are best to visit their website to check.
- You should register the death in the district where your relative died. If that is not convenient for you, it is possible to register a death by declaration at your most local register office, however that will delay the paperwork process. This is because the registrar needs to forward the information to the correct district where the death occurred, so that the death can be officially registered there. Any death certificates or documents are then sent to you by post.
- The ideal register office to use is the one in the same district where your relative died, which you can find using this online search tool:
The following documentation is useful to have when the telephone appointment takes place, the registrar will also advise:
- any ID documentation for the deceased (e.g. utility bill, NHS number or medical card)
- any official certificates for the deceased (e.g. birth certificate, marriage certificate)
During the appointment
- The registrar will also ask for certain additional details, such as place and date of birth, place and date of death, last address and occupation of the deceased. They will also need the full name, date of birth and occupation of their spouse.
- They will also ask for details of the funeral director (we are on the system of many registrars)
After the appointment
- The Registrar will provide you with the Death Certificate which you will need for settling their affairs, so it’s a good idea to buy extra copies at the time. Each copy costs £11.
- They will also give you a Tell Us Once reference number to access the Tell Us Once online service which makes it easy to notify most government organisations at once of the death.
- The Registrar will email the Certificate for Burial or Cremation (known as ‘the Green Form’) directly to the funeral director.
- If the death has been reported to a coroner you can’t register the death until the coroner gives permission.
For contact details of local register offices in Richmond, Kingston, Surrey and SW London read our blog Registering a death at a register office.
