Today I am trying to do two useful things since it is the first time i feel like it since Tuesday. One is the Tell Us Once service which the council sent me details about and apparently means it cancels everything conveniently and with minimum hassle by just telling the Government once. it sounds too good to be true with this lot though. Does anyone have experience of this if it is OK or better to do things separately?
I am worried about two things it mentions also.
it says road tax is not transferrable and needs to be applied for again and the registered keeper of the vehicle (my husband, i don’t drive or know anything about the car and the car is actually one of those hire purchase things where we pay an amount each month and dont own it at the end but we were separately saving up to then buy it at the end in a few years hopefully but yes i don’t drive but i am not ready to have that car leave my drive as it makes my house look occupied, blocks access to a big window and i feel safer with it).
passport cancellation. Some of you may have read my other posts where it meant a lot to me that my husband’s passport had come through last week after he died, after he had a lot of trouble trying to get it. I even had it mentioned in the funeral eulogy because it was such a big deal to him. I don’t want to send his passport off anywhere, i want to keep it. Will I have to send it if i cancel the passport or is it best not to say anything?
I used the tell us once service and as far as I can tell it has worked okay.
I have kept hold of Karen’s passport.
Regarding the car tax, if the vehicle is kept off the road (for example on your drive) then you can apply for the refund of car tax. This should mean the car is then on SORN (Statuary Off Road Notice). But if the car is parked on the road, you need to keep the car tax up to date. I’m not at all sure where you stand regarding the car insurance as, presumably, that is in your husband’s name
@FleurDeLis I also don’t drive and the car was on a hire purchase agreement. The company said they would take it back but would auction it and I would have to make up the difference if it sold for less than we owed. Luckily for me the local garage we bought it from bought it back from me which covered the loan and I had some money back. In your case you will keep paying the monthly premiums so perhaps you might enquire what your position is and consider if you can afford to do that but if it makes you feel safer then it will be worth it to you… The insurance company continued cover without charge until I could sort it out. The car was off road so I cancelled the tax and SORN it.
I used the tell us once service and it worked very well. I still have Johns passport they just cancelled it so you won’t have to send the precious passport back.
All this legal stuff is so difficult for us to cope with at the worst time of our lives. I know how you feel. Take care.
Thank you Johnswife, I did the tell us once now as your two comments made me feel better about it.
I will have to think how to handle the car and take some action next time, hopefully next week. I also saw my home insurance won’t be valid without me changing the name which is a shocker so better do that soon as a high priority too but had enough for today.
Hope this helps,
You should register the car in your name and then declare it off the road. When it’s registered in your name you will be able to sell it when you feel the time is right. You need to advise the insurance company, they will put the insurance in your name and adjust cover to reflect it will be staying on your drive.
The passport does need to be cancelled and returned to passport office unless it is lost. I had to take my husbands with me when I registered his death. It was taken off me and I can remember it upset me, so I understand how you feel about it. As you have used the ‘Tell us once’’ service you don’t have to fill in a form to send with a copy of death certificate, so that will help.
@Stargazer I guess your husband sadly died before COVID-19? The register of deaths is working online and there is no need to give the passport or indeed the driving licence away. They simply cancel them. It was explained to me by the registrar. I have both in with Johns other belongings When Dad died in January I had to hand them over as I registered his death in person.
With regards to the passport just claim it as lost if they ask. We did when we registered my dads death as we had no idea where it was. Due to his ill health he hadn’t left the country for years. We have since found it but kept it. It is out of date though. Our experience of tell us once was good. We had a mobility car which we were allowed to keep for 3 weeks afterwards then it went back. We didn’t drive it after mum got her new car though. The insurance and tax remained until it was collected.
Hi FleurDeLis, I used the Tell Us Once and it is very easy. You do not have to send anything away as this service just notifies people. I suggest you go online to Bereavement Advice Centre to have a look. Then ring them 0800-634-9494. They will patiently explain anything you don’t understand. You can fill the form in online for Tell Us Once. You will need to have things like driving licence number, Passport Number, National Insurance Number. (Yours and his so they can adjust your pension automatically if you get it now) Council Tax Account if you pay council tax, D.V.L.A. etc. They can also stop junk mail to your partner. If you want to keep the car ring DVLA and tell them it is off road (it is called a SORN) If there is any road tax outstanding you may get a refund on this. Just slow down and breathe. It all looks overwhelming at first but just take it in small chunks and it all gets done. I hope this is helpful to you.
Hi. FleurDeLis. If you go on paying the hire purchase payment then there is no need to lose the car. If it is ever driven again it would need road tax and insurance, but as you don’t drive that won’t happen. Have you cancelled the insurance? If you don’t intend to use the car again then you can apply for a form that tells DVLC the car is off the road and you will not have to pay road tax. Look úp 'Vehicle tax.gov on the web. Tell DVLC that you are no longer able to use the car because of bereavement but want to keep it. In my experience they have been very helpful.
I found the ‘Tell us once service’ very useful. They do all the paperwork for you, but there are still some things they can’t do that need your individual attention.
You don’t have to give up his passport. You can keep it and you have no need to tell anyone. It was his property and now its yours. That’s how I see it, but I am sure if they want it back they will tell you.
Life can be so difficult when we lose someone who did all those things for us. My wife would have been unable to cope with it all as she never used a computer.
Now take care and try not to worry overmuch. It will all get done in the end. John.
If a car is left on the drive it would be wise to have insurance that reflects the risk. More so when there is financial implications should it be damaged or stolen. I speak from my own personal experience. I mentioned in my reply that my husband’s passport was taken from me and how upsetting that was, but I found comfort in the fact I have our passports from 4 decades of wonderful travels. I just got them out and saw us as 30, 40 & 50 year olds, only my husbands 60th one missing
Thank you all for such great advice and help. I feel like I am in the sinking sand at the beach my husband and I used to drive to for a walk and joke about and my husband is not there to pull me up but I can see all these other hands there reaching to me still. Thank you really.
I should insure the car because it is at risk of damage or theft for sure in the estate I live in (on fireworks night the other week fireworks were landing near it and on Halloween kids smashed a glass bottle next to it at the bottom of my drive). I will look into the home, contents and car insurances as my next task, so far so good today so maybe even today I can make a start.
I had to put a complaint in about tell us once. I didn’t know that an interim death certificate doesn’t have the right numbers on, why would I?. The guy was rude unhelpful and upset me even more. I told the coroner and he put in the complaint for me because he was disgusted but the man’s attitude to me. If course I dont feel like doing it of course I am over sensitive but he needs to do his job and understand what kind of people he is dealing with. Broken upset and emotional relatives .
I used the tell us once service for my husband. It was ok and simple to use but you do need a lot of information to hand to complete the form. Finding all the information took me longer than completing the form. Hope you get everything sorted with as minimal upset as possible xxx
thats so frustrating as how on earth could you know that. Companies could get a lot better at how they deal with bereavement, they make something already difficult even worse. I hope one day I will have the strength to write to a few companies about this as I already had some bad experiences and hardly did anything yet so I dread to think what others who managed to do all their admin had .
