Information to help you tell public services when someone has died
When someone has died, there are a lot of people who need to be told, at a time when you probably feel least like doing it.
Our Registration Service provides a service which we hope will make things easier for you. This service means that at the end of your appointment when you tell us about a death, we can then contact other organisations on your behalf.
Free, simple and sensitive, the Tell Us Once service can securely pass information about a death directly to other public sector organisations.
Documents you should bring to confirm your name and address:
If you wish to give us this information, you must bring as many of the following documents belonging to the deceased person as possible to the appointment.
If you do not have this information handy, or you do not wish to provide this information during the registration appointment, you can choose to use a dedicated phone service at a later date. The registrar will give you a unique reference number and details of who to call.
If the deceased person lived outside of Somerset we will advise you at your appointment if government services within their local area are part of this notification service.
All the organisations we contact will use the information to update their records within 15 days. We treat all your information securely, sensitively and in accordance with the law.
The organisations and services we contact include
Council Services
Identity and Passport Service
Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency
Department for Work and Pensions
Ministry of Defence, Service Personnel and Veterans Agency
HM Revenue and Customs
This list is subject to change and you can find the most updated list on the GOV.UK bereavement website.
If the death took place in Somerset, you can register at any of our offices.
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Appointments to register a death are normally allocated 45 minutes.
If the death took place outside Somerset, it should be registered at the Register Office for the district in which the death occurred. If you cannot get there, you can register the death ‘by declaration’ at any Register Office in England and Wales. This means that the details you give to the registrar will be sent to the correct district to be registered.
In some circumstances the death will have been reported to the coroner. The registrar must receive documents from the coroner before the death can be registered.
You should only make provisional arrangements for a funeral until authority for the funeral has been issued, either by a registrar or the coroner.
You can book an appointment to register a death online. If you would like confirmation of your booking, you must give us a valid email address.
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