After a death in the UK there are now four services that will tell companies about it for you, and all four are free to the family. They overlap, they each leave gaps, and the one most people hear about first is not always the one they need. This guide sets them side by side: who each one tells, what it costs, how long it takes, and what is left for you to do afterwards.
We are not a notification service, and we say below exactly where we fit and where we do not. If you only need to tell the bank, the council and the energy company, you do not need us, and this page will send you to the right free service instead.
The short version. Use Tell Us Once for government, the Death Notification Service or Settld for banks and insurers, and Settld or Life Ledger for everything else that has a customer account. All of them send a notice and wait. None of them will argue with Meta when it refuses a memorialisation, or get a UK family anywhere with Apple when there is no Legacy Contact. Those are the two places families end up with us.
Not sure which gap you are in? Email us what you have tried and we will tell you which free service to use, or whether it is something we should take over.
The four services side by side
| Service | Who it tells | Cost to the family | What it does not do |
|---|---|---|---|
| Tell Us Once (GOV.UK) | Government only: HMRC, the Department for Work and Pensions, the Passport Office, the DVLA, the local council and public sector pension schemes. | Free | No companies, no banks, no online accounts. Not available in Northern Ireland. |
| Death Notification Service | Its member firms, mostly banks, building societies and insurers, in one go. | Free | Only members. No utilities, phones, subscriptions or social media. |
| Settld | Over 1,400 companies: banks, insurers, pensions, utilities, telecoms, subscriptions and social media. Requests closure or memorialisation and chases delays. | Free to families (companies and partners pay). Probate and estate help are paid extras. | Sends the request and follows it up. Cannot overturn a platform that refuses or ignores it. |
| Life Ledger | Over 1,000 UK companies, mainly banks, insurers, pensions, energy, water, telecoms and broadband. | Free | Social media and the big technology accounts are covered by its guides more than by its notifications. |
Tell Us Once
Tell Us Once is the government's own service, offered when you register the death in England, Scotland or Wales. The registrar gives you a reference number, and with it you report the death to most government departments in a single sitting: tax, benefits, the state pension, the passport, the driving licence, the council for council tax and the Blue Badge, and public sector pensions. It is the first thing to do and it takes about half an hour.
It stops there. Tell Us Once does not contact a single company, so the bank, the mortgage, the mobile phone and every online account are still untouched when you finish. Northern Ireland has no Tell Us Once; each department has to be told separately.
The Death Notification Service
The Death Notification Service was set up by the banking industry. You fill in one form and it is sent to every member organisation you tick, which in practice means the main high street banks and building societies and a number of insurers. It is free, it works, and the firms involved have agreed to respond within a set time.
Its limit is its membership. If the person banked somewhere that is not a member, or you need to tell the energy supplier, the phone network or a subscription, it does not reach them. Think of it as the banking version of Tell Us Once.
Settld
Settld is the broadest of the four. One form covers more than 1,400 companies, including the categories the others leave out: utilities, telecoms, subscriptions, and social media. For a Facebook or Instagram account it sends the death notification, asks for the account to be closed or memorialised, asks for marketing to stop, and lets you track each request. Its own page says most social media providers take up to three months to complete the request, and that the timeframes are the companies' own. It is free to families; Settld earns from the companies and partners it works with, and from paid extras such as probate support.
If you want one place to tell everyone, start here. What Settld cannot do is change a platform's answer. When Meta writes back to say it could not verify you, or never writes back at all, Settld has sent the notice and chased it, which is its job, and the account is still open.
Life Ledger
Life Ledger is also free and works the same way: register the person's details once, pick the companies, add instructions such as close or transfer, and it packages and sends what each company needs. Its directory of more than 1,000 companies is strongest in banking, insurance, pensions, energy, water, telecoms and broadband. For Facebook, Gmail and the rest it publishes step by step guides rather than sending the request for you.
For a family whose main worry is the household bills and the bank, Life Ledger and Settld are close substitutes. Choose whichever lists the companies you actually need to reach.
What you still have to do yourself
- Redirecting the post. Royal Mail's special circumstances redirection is a separate paper application with its own evidence. Our Royal Mail guide explains it.
- The phone contract. The networks accept a notification but the choices, keeping the number, moving the contract or closing it, need a conversation with their bereavement team. Every UK provider is listed in our phone contracts guide.
- Finding the accounts in the first place. Every service above works from the list you give it. The finding accounts guide and the UK checklist are for building that list.
- Deciding memorialise or delete. A notification service asks the platform for what you tick. The memorialise or delete guide is for deciding what to tick, because a deletion cannot be undone.
What none of them can finish
A notification service does exactly what the name says. It tells the company and asks for an action. For a bank or an energy supplier that is enough, because the company has a bereavement team whose job is to act on the notice. The technology platforms are different. Their forms are automated, their documentation rules are strict and sometimes contradictory, and when a request fails there is usually no person to phone. These are the situations that come to us after a free service has done its part:
- Meta refuses or ignores the request. The memorialisation form will not accept the profile, the documents are rejected because the names do not match, or weeks pass with no reply. Our Facebook and Instagram stuck pages diagnose each failure. Where a family would rather not go round again, we take the request over and see it through.
- Apple with no Legacy Contact. Apple will not release an account to a UK family on a death certificate or a grant of probate; it talks about a court order. What that means, what is realistic and what is not, is on the Apple page.
- Google and Gmail. Google will close an account and release money owed, but data needs a court order issued in the United States. The Google page explains what families can and cannot get.
- WhatsApp with no phone. WhatsApp says it cannot deactivate an account for someone else. The WhatsApp page covers the routes that do work.
- The order of closure. Close the email first and every account that uses it for codes becomes unreachable. Close Apple before the photos are saved and the library goes with it. A notification service sends all the requests at once; we sequence them.
This is the work Departed Digital does. We do not notify 1,400 companies; the free services do that better than we could. We take the handful of accounts that have gone wrong or that carry a risk, and we deal with the platform until each one is closed or memorialised, with the documents sent once and a written record at the end. Packages start at £149 for up to two accounts, £249 for up to five, and £399 for an estate. One payment, and the price does not change if a platform takes months. The service page has the detail.
Which one do you need?
- Just registered the death? Tell Us Once first, with the reference number from the registrar.
- Banks, building societies and insurers? The Death Notification Service if they are members, otherwise Settld.
- Everything with a customer account, in one go? Settld or Life Ledger. Both are free; pick the one that lists your companies.
- Social media, and you have not asked yet? Settld will send the request, or our platform guides show you how to send it yourself in ten minutes.
- Social media, Apple or Google, and the request has failed or stalled? Read the matching stuck page, then either go round again with the right documents or hand it to us.
Already sent the notice and still waiting? Start a case from £149 and we take over the accounts that are stuck. Or email us what the platform said and we will tell you what it means, free.