If you now have two bank accounts (your own and the spouse’s which you made joint), consider changing what is billed where so that you have one with all the ongoing activity, and one to act as an “executor account” to manage payments for the funeral, probate fees, inheritance sums, etc..
As soon as possible, calculate what money is the surviving spouse’s and what is part of the estate.
It might be handy to download a detailed copy of the person’s stocks, shares, funds, pending income etc.. You need info about the deceased’s investments for IHT forms, and once the broker is made aware of the death the detailed online view may become inaccessible until many weeks later. But it’s best to get the official info from the broker because the layout matches the IHT forms.
Within 28 days, contact Tell Us Once (DVLA, Passport, HMRC, Electoral Register, certain pension, PIP, Carer’s Allowance, local council) – take to interview (or have to hand):
- National Insurance number and date of birth of the deceased
- Their passport or passport number and town/country of birth
- Driving licence or driving licence number
- Car registration number
- Details of state pensions and benefits
- Death certificate (if not completing Tell Us Once at the time of registration)
- Pension number if it’s a scheme covered by Tell Us One (NHS, Civil Service, and more)
This will also take care of any blue badge.
The “Carers Allowances Changes” system can be used to stop that, and other benefits related to the deceased need stopping if Tell Us Once doesn’t cover them.
Physical:
- Shred old chequebooks
- Send driving licence back to DVLA
- Cut the corner of their passport cover to make it unusable, but keep it because some organisations below accept it as a document.
- Cancel and remove SIM cards from phones.
- Reset iPads etc. before you sell them or give them away.
- Take surplus medicines back to the chemist for safe destruction.
Tell relevant organisations (you can start a lot of this immediately by phone and few want death certs). Many of these have direct debits in place with the deceased, so do you want to take the opportunity to migrate the direct debit to your own bank account?
- Companies that have equipped the home (hospital-style bed etc.)
- Bereavement Service Helpline to initiate a tax free Bereavement Support Payment if death is before state pension starts. (Although this is part of DWP, it is not covered by Tell Us Once.)
- GP
- Dentist, Dental insurance plan
- Health insurance
- Bank – maybe online – Death Certificate photocopy/upload, spouse ID photocopy.
- Online investment broker – send original death certificate, get estate application, send grant of probate, send transfer forms. Pensions are often managed separately from other investments.
- Credit Card
- Shop affinity/club card
- Airline frequent flyer card
- Car ownership change DVLA (car tax will be refunded from when they are informed, not from date of death)
- Car finance, warranty, service plan
- Car insurance
- Home insurance
- Water
- Energy
- TV & media & ISP
- TV Licence
- Mobile SIM
- Council tax
- Window cleaner and other services
- Land Registry (Two stages to this. See below)
- Survivor pension (certain pensions are initiated by Tell Us Once)
- Netflix, Amazon Prime
- Google, Apple
- Social media
Try to avoid getting cheques payable to “the Executors of…” because that probably means opening a new bank account in that name, and not all banks offer this. Discuss with your bank how flexible they can be if you receive such a cheque. Ultimately the executor may have to wait until they can prove that they are the executor and get the cheque reissued, which is what I had to do.
