Tell Us Once: what it does and what it leaves undone

You have just registered the death at the register office. The registrar slides a leaflet across the desk and mentions a service called Tell Us Once. Most people nod and file the leaflet away with the death certificates, intending to deal with it later. A few weeks on, with a dozen departments still waiting to be told, that leaflet begins to feel more urgent.

Tell Us Once is a free service run by the UK government that allows you to report a death to multiple central and local government departments in a single notification. It does not do everything, and it is worth understanding exactly where it stops before you assume the administrative work is finished.

What Tell Us Once covers

When you use the service, you can authorise it to notify a defined set of government bodies. These typically include:

• HM Revenue and Customs, which will stop or adjust tax credits, Child Benefit, and update the deceased's tax records
• The Department for Work and Pensions, which will stop or review State Pension and most other DWP benefits
• The Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency, which will cancel the deceased's driving licence and, if you provide the V5C reference, flag the vehicle record
• HM Passport Office, which will cancel the deceased's passport
• The local council, which may stop Council Tax discounts, Housing Benefit, and remove the person from the electoral register
• Veterans UK, if the person was receiving a war disablement pension or war widow's pension
• The Public Guardianship Office in Scotland and equivalent bodies, if relevant

In England and Wales, the service is available from the register office at the point of registering the death, or online through Gov.uk using a unique reference code the registrar provides. The reference is valid for 28 days. You will need basic information about the deceased: their National Insurance number, date of birth, address, and details of any benefits or licences held.

The service also gives you the option to notify certain devolved and local services depending on where the person lived. The registrar or the Gov.uk guidance will tell you which apply in your case.

What Tell Us Once does not cover

This is the part that catches families by surprise. Tell Us Once is a government-to-government channel. It has no reach into the private sector, and that is where much of the practical work sits.

The service will not notify:

• Banks, building societies, or investment platforms
• Life insurers or pension providers outside the State Pension
• Utility companies or broadband providers
• Mortgage lenders
• Subscription services or direct debits
• Employers or occupational pension schemes
• Solicitors holding a will or acting in a property transaction
• The Land Registry, if a property needs to be transferred or updated

Each of those must be contacted separately, usually with an original or certified copy of the death certificate. The number of certificates you order at registration matters: most families underestimate how many they need. Consider ordering several. A solicitor or estate administrator can advise based on the complexity of the estate.

There is also a separate question about the Office of the Public Guardian. If the deceased held a Lasting Power of Attorney over someone else's affairs, or was subject to a deputyship order, those arrangements need to be reviewed independently. Tell Us Once does not trigger that review automatically.

Similarly, if the deceased was the registered contact for any Gov.uk services in their own right, such as a business tax account or self-assessment filing, those accounts need to be handled through HMRC directly. Tell Us Once updates the personal records; it does not close business registrations.

One further note: Tell Us Once is available in most parts of England, Wales, and Scotland. Northern Ireland operates a separate system. If the deceased lived there, or held assets there, check the nidirect.gov.uk guidance rather than assuming the same process applies.

After you have used the service, keep a written record of the reference number and the date you submitted the notification. Departments can take several weeks to process the information, and benefits may continue to be paid into the deceased's account in the interim. Executors have a responsibility to return any overpayments, so monitoring the account during this period is prudent.

Tell Us Once is genuinely useful. It compresses what would otherwise be a series of separate calls and letters into a single step. But it is the beginning of the administrative process, not the end of it. The longer task of notifying financial institutions, closing accounts, and gathering the documents needed to administer the estate still requires time, organisation, and careful record-keeping.

Glenvault is built to hold exactly those records, whether you are preparing now or managing an estate in progress. You can begin at glenvault.com/signup.