What to do when someone dies: a calm, step-by-step checklist

What should you do in the first 48 hours after someone dies?

The first two days are not for finishing the admin. They are for three things: making sure the death is confirmed by someone with the authority to do so, knowing where the person is and who to contact, and telling the few people who must hear it now. Everything else can wait until you have slept.

What happens first depends on where the death happened. In a hospital or hospice, staff confirm the death and explain the paperwork; ask for a named contact and whether there is a bereavement office. At home, when the death was expected, you call the person's doctor, hospice or community nurse team. At home, when the death was sudden, you call the emergency number; police attending is routine and the death may be referred to a coroner, medical examiner or equivalent, which can delay paperwork. If the death happened abroad, contact local emergency services, then your embassy or consulate, then the travel insurer's emergency line before arranging anything.

Write down every name, number and next step as you go. Grief makes memory unreliable, and you will be asked for the same details many times.

Accept help, but make it specific. When people say 'let me know if there is anything I can do', give each one a single job with a time attached: collecting a child from school at 3:15, walking the dog this week, or sitting with an older relative while you make calls. Specific jobs get done; vague offers rarely do, and handing them out is part of looking after yourself.

• Keep the person's phone charged and safe, and do not reset it: it may hold contacts and verification codes.
• Lock the home and car, keep medicines away from children, and give pets and post to a helper.
• If faith or culture asks for a quick burial, tell the doctor, hospital or coroner's office straight away.

How do you register a death?

Registration creates the official record of the death and is how you get the death certificate that banks, insurers and government offices ask for. In most places it depends on a medical certificate of cause of death, or the coroner's equivalent, being issued first.

Who registers, and how quickly, differs by country. In England and Wales, GOV.UK says a death should be registered within 5 days of the medical examiner's confirmation, and within 8 days in Scotland. In the US, the funeral home usually files the death record with the state or county vital records office, and you order certified copies from there. In other countries a hospital, municipal office or local registrar handles it. Check the official source for where the person died.

You will be asked for the person's full name and any previous names, date and place of birth, last address, occupation, date and place of death, marital or partnership status, and identity, tax or social security numbers. Gather these once on a single page and keep it by the phone.

How many death certificates do you need?

This is one of the most useful questions to get right early. Some organisations accept a photocopy or a scan, some want to see an original and will return it, and a few keep it. Ordering more later usually takes longer.

A simple method: list the organisations likely to want an original or certified copy, such as each bank, pension provider, life insurer, the employer, investment platforms, the court or probate office and any organisation abroad. Order that number plus two spares. Before posting an original, ask whether a certified copy or an upload will do, and record every original you send.

Who do you need to notify when someone dies, and in what order?

Build the full list before you start calling. Twelve months of bank statements show every direct debit and repeating payment; the post, the person's email and the apps on their phone show the rest. Then sort the list by what goes wrong if you wait.

• Check for a government 'tell once' service: in England, Scotland and Wales, GOV.UK's Tell Us Once notifies many government departments in one go.
• For every call, have the person's details, the date of death, your relationship, what you are asking for, and a pen for the adviser's name and reference.

What happens to bank accounts and bills after a death?

Accounts in the person's sole name are usually frozen once the bank is told; the money belongs to the estate and is released to whoever has legal authority. Many banks will pay a funeral invoice directly from the account if you send the invoice and a copy of the death certificate. Joint accounts often pass to the surviving holder, but not everywhere, so ask.

Give every regular payment one of four decisions: stop it, transfer it into the name of whoever now lives there, keep paying it for now, or check it first. Loans and credit cards belong in the last group. In many countries relatives are not personally responsible for a dead person's debts unless they were joint borrowers or guarantors, so do not pay them from your own money until the executor or an adviser has confirmed who owes what.

Look for time-limited help. GOV.UK, for example, says you must claim the UK's Bereavement Support Payment within 3 months of a partner's death to get the full amount, and the Government of Canada asks executors to apply for the CPP death benefit within 60 days. Other countries have their own payments; check your government's official site.

How do you tell a child that someone has died?

Use clear words. Phrases such as 'lost', 'passed away' or 'gone to sleep' can confuse or frighten young children. The NHS advice for parents says direct, honest and open communication is more helpful than trying to protect a child by hiding the truth. Say that the person has died, that their body has stopped working, that they cannot come back, and that it is not anyone's fault.

Then include children in what happens next, as far as they want: explain what a funeral is and let them choose whether to go and how to take part. Keep routines going, tell the school, and expect grief to return at birthdays and milestones. Speak to a doctor or a child bereavement service if a child talks about wanting to die, harms themselves, or is struggling severely months later.

Is it normal to grieve in waves rather than stages?

Yes. The 'five stages' are widely known, but grief rarely moves through them in order; the NHS notes you may not experience all of them, or in any particular order. Many bereavement services use the dual process model developed by Margaret Stroebe and Henk Schut, which describes healthy grieving as moving back and forth between facing the loss and rebuilding daily life, including taking breaks from grief.

Most people do not need professional treatment for grief, but some do. The American Psychiatric Association added prolonged grief disorder to the DSM-5-TR in 2022, for intense grief that still disrupts daily life at least a year after a death for adults. Talk to your doctor if you cannot manage basic daily tasks week after week, feel hopeless, or are relying on alcohol or drugs to cope. If you are thinking about suicide, contact local emergency services or a crisis line now: for example 988 in the US and Canada, or Samaritans on 116 123 in the UK and Ireland.

If you find a weekly check-in useful, Resilience & Stress Management from AssessAll can help you understand how you cope under pressure.

How do you handle bereavement leave and returning to work?

Bereavement leave rules vary widely. Australia's Fair Work Ombudsman, for example, says employees get 2 days of compassionate leave each time an immediate family or household member dies, while in the US there is no general federal right and practice depends on state law and employer policy. Your contract or company policy may give more than the law, so ask HR.

Tell your manager in writing as early as you can, even in one line. Before you go back, agree what colleagues will be told, whether a phased return is possible and what happens if you need to step out. Then put the hard dates, such as the first birthday and the anniversary, in your calendar a few weeks early, so you can decide how to spend them instead of being caught out. If you struggle to keep routines like these going, Jobulary's guide to if-then plans offers a simple way to make them automatic.

How can you keep all of this organised?

Keep one record. A single notebook, spreadsheet or folder with the steps, the organisations, the certificates, the bills and the dates will save hours and protect you from repeating yourself. Write every call down with a name and reference.

If you would like the whole method ready to use, the Bodhih Grief and After-a-Death Admin Kit includes a workbook with a 34-organisation notification master list, 47 letters and scripts, forms for the first 48 hours, for each child and for your own weekly check-in, dated country notes and a 12-week plan.