After bereavement- practical advice

Such a good, practical idea for a thread Cabbie21.
I’m sorry for your loss. x

This won't apply to many people, but I'm sticking to what I know!

If you want to be buried in a churchyard, as opposed to a municipal cemetery, it is possible to reserve a plot but it requires quite a bit of form filling and a "faculty", which costs money. If there's plenty of room in the churchyard it's probably not worth it, but if the space is filling rapidly it might be a good idea.

You should leave several months for the ground to settle before erecting a memorial. Churchyards have different rules from cemeteries and the style of headstone and the wording should be approved by the vicar and parochial church council.

It's worthwhile, when registering a death, to accept the service that notifies most of the other agencies. Just as well to check which and if it has been done.

Also see if the bank has a dedicated bereavement service.

I think it’s called Tell Us Once?
A really good idea for a practical thread on this subject.

Yes - Tell us Once, but for some it’s not totally suitable.
I actually didn’t need probate when my DH died - he’d anticipated the outcome of his illness, so acted in advance.
I was lucky in that I was able to use his last will and testament to release his ISA and sell his car.

Most financial institutions have a bereavement team. Lloyds bank’s team was excellent.

Don't forget to redo your will and take out both powers of attorney at the same time it's cheaper . Make sure your home is in your name with land registry. Hopefully you have cancelled everything that was just in your husband's name . My husband had a subscription to Wet News no it wasn't porn but about the sewerage and water industry.

Easier said than done! DH had a huge number of subscriptions, mostly online. He had a book full of information, passwords etc. although it is strictly illegal to use them, but at least I knew which to check. I kept his phone going for a few months and checked his emails, so I could unsubscribe from many websites and newsletters.

I’ve just read on my Practice website that there are new ways of registering a death.

When registering the death buy 8 or 10 certs.
You have to submit many more than you think and it's easier and cheaper to get them when registering.

This is less likely to be an issue with a spouse but remember the cost of the funeral comes from the deceaseds assets.
So you take the invoice to their bank along with death cert and it will be paid.
No one told me this and I paid from my own money.
There was no will and I was not in the rules of intestacy.
I think funeral directors should tell people this.

I would definitely endorse obtaining probate yourself if the estate is reasonably simple. I did it when my Dad passed away. He had numerous savings and current accounts, some investment and premium bonds and a couple of private pensions. Took a little less than 4 weeks and cost around £400.

I had become a 50% tenant in common on his property when my Mum died and inherited the whole property when he died. Solicitor quoted me around £600 to put the title deeds in my name with the Land Registry. I contacted the Land Registry myself. Filled in a form which took about 5 minutes and sent to them with copy of will and death certificate. Cost me the price of the stamp. About £1.50 at the time.

If you can, do it yourself. Saved me over £2000.

If the property is held as tenants-in-common and the surviving spouse has the right to remain there, the will is setting up an IPDI ( immediate post death interest) trust which now needs to be registered with HMRC within two years, as well as informing the Land Registry. I did use a solicitor for this as I felt out of my depth.

You can ask to be put through to the bereavement line, if you need to speak to a deceased person's bank or building society.

The bank can release funds from the account for paying costs (towards funeral, etc) before they freeze the account.

I found that several organisations were happy to accept a scanned online copy of various documents, including the death certificate and Probate, which saved time and money.

I contacted the Land Registry myself. Filled in a form which took about 5 minutes and sent to them with copy of will and death certificate. Cost me the price of the stamp. About £1.50 at the time.

Definitely inform the Land Registry!

We've just bought a retirement apartment.
The person named on the Land Registry details had died many years ago. Correcting this caused a lot of problems for the vendor.

I did probate myself for my Dad, quite a simple will so easily done. We have kept our wills very simple too, my son should be able to sort it himself.

But reading this I am now thinking about names on things and I will have to check the house deeds as I don't think I ever changed my name on there. I divorced back in the early 80's but still used my ex married name until about 15 years ago (reverted to my maiden name) but bought this house with my partner in the early 1990's. So it will still be in my ex married name.
I bet this will be another of those how to prove things. Having just gone through that trying to give my son some money for his house, I know it's nigh on impossible to please folk when you don't drive or have a passport these days!

Do a lot of research yourself because establishments often don't volunteer information.
I discovered that I could inherit DH's ISAs but it took me almost a year to sort it, they denied knowledge and it ended up with SIL and I telling them how to do it. I was one step from the financial ombudsman when they finally agreed that I was entitled to it.
DD and SIL started the ball rolling with Tell us once, a useful service but everything was different back in 2021. A lot of things were sorted online with scanned copies of relevant papers.
Good advice to get several death certificates, I bought ten but didn't need them all.
If you are given an option to provide a death certificate or probate I always chose the death certificate because probate shows the deceased estate value and I did not want all and sundry having access to that information.

Accounts. Only residuary beneficiaries have a right to see the final accounts, so they can see if the amount received is correct and how their amount was arrived at. People awarded a specific bequest do not have a right, but an executor may choose to share the information if they wish.

welbeck

When registering the death buy 8 or 10 certs.
You have to submit many more than you think and it's easier and cheaper to get them when registering.

Yes, last time we got a dozen. So many organisations demand an original.

My car insurance with LV went up by about 20% as legally I'm now considered a single person and considered more of a risk. I found this very upsetting (that I'm considered single as well as it going up) and they agreed not to put it up for first year. I also reduced my car insurance by adding my second adult child. This surprised me as my first was already on it as we regularly swap cars when I'm driving my grandchild.
Another thing that surprises me is how difficult I find it to make household decisions by myself, as I would have said I had more than 50% input into the decision making before and we didn't always agree. Discussing with family and friends just isn't the same.

I didn't need the 7 death certificates that I bought. Many of the financial organisations ask for the number on the death certificate and those that wanted a copy sent it back by return of post. With the 'Tell Us Once' form all the government departments and local authority (DWP, DVLA etc) that need to be advised are done so without sending a death certificate. I would have managed with 3.

I second that, Apricotdessert. I am very indecisive on household matters. On the other hand i have been able to make some changes which my husband would never have agreed to, and I can choose my TV programmes!

Many thanks for this thread Cabbie21. I am beginning to anticipate being in this situation. I hadn’t clocked that bank accounts are closed so soon after the death. What is the trigger and procedure, please? Should I - if I know he’ll never use his accounts again himself - go into them myself and as you say cancel subscriptions etc.

We’ve always had separate bank accounts and for historic reasons with separate banks. Will this be an added complication? No?

Bank accounts aren’t closed by using Tell Us Once. That covers DWP, HMRC, DVLA and the Local Authority.
Banks should be informed asap ( probably within 7-10 days) and will need sight of the death certificate before they freeze them. Lloyds bereavement team were excellent. They asked me if they could settle DH’s credit card debt out of his current account balance. They sent me a years’s past statements so I could see what his regular outgoings were, so I could inform companies. They paid the funeral bill on receipt of the invoice from the funeral director. They advised me to open a new account, for estate funds, as DH’s was a sole account. (We had a joint account for household bills with another bank.) They also advised me about my right to his ISA, using the additional allowance and pointed me in the right direction to do that.
RSB were also very good. PayPal were really tricky, after refunds from other companies were repaid to them. It took many communications to resolve that.
Subscriptions: some gave refunds, some didn’t.
Pensions- there may not be time to stop the next payment, so an overpayment may occur.
Currently pension funds and payouts normally fall outside the estate but that is going to change since the budget.