The Tell us Once and Stop Mail Services

A guide to help you simply notify government agencies of a death and prevent upsetting junk mail being sent to your loved one

Tell Us Once is a free government service that allows you to report a death when you suffer a bereavement and need to tell central and local government.

When someone has died, there are lots of things that need to be done, at a time when you probably least feel like doing them.

This will include contacting Government departments and local council services that need to be informed. When you use Tell Us Once, the services notified will include:

  • DWP Pensions and Benefits
  • Personal Tax
  • Council Tax
  • Passport
  • Driving Licence
  • Blue Badge
  • Electoral Register
  • Public Sector Pensions

 

What Next: The Tell Us Once Service

Once the death has been registered, the registrar should have advised you if the service is available in your area. If so, they will have provided you with a unique reference number, which is needed to complete the Tell Us Once.

To complete,

you can visit www.gov.uk/tell-us-once following the registration of death. The above unique reference number that will be provided is usually valid for 84 days from registration of the death.

Please note,

that Tell Us Once will not stop unwanted Junk Mail from being sent. You will need to separately complete the details, please read below for more information.
“Stop Mail” is a free service that has been developed by the Bereavement Support Network and RNS Publications to help families and friends to locate services and to cancel unsolicited mail following a loss.

The Stop Mail service enters the details into a secure data bank. Any company wishing to send direct mail details of their products and services can check their mailing list against the information held on The Bereavement Register ®.

If the direct mail companies find any matches, they will remove the deceased’s details and stop sending them marketing communications. They are obliged to do this by law.

The information provided to Stop Mail is added to a mail suppression system which over 3000 UK organisations subscribe to. Many of these organisations are household names.

Typical users include financial institutions, mail order companies, national retailers and charities.

In addition to offering this service you can also access the free to use probate helpline if you need any advice as to what probate is and whether you will need it.

The Freephone service is operated by Trust Inheritance Ltd and completely confidential. You can call the dedicated team on 0808 168 9607.

What Next: Stopping Junk Mail

You can either visit stopmail.co.uk where in a matter of minutes, you can complete the information required online to notify us now, or you can call 0808 168 6907 and our dedicated team will be happy to help.