BEREAVEMENT

There are a few things you’ll need to do straight away:

• Ask for a medical certificate – The GP, doctor or hospital can help with this. This is different to a death certificate and will be used to register the death.
• Register the death – Take the medical certificate to the registrar of births, deaths and marriages. You can find a register office on the government’s website. The process varies depending on whether the person died at home, overseas or in a hospital. There are also variations for different parts of the UK. There is some helpful information in the government’s step-by-step guide to tell you what you need to do and how quickly.
• Ask for a death certificate – The registrar will provide you with a death certificate. You can also use a copy of the registrar’s record of death to help deal with money matter.
• Check if there is a will – Find out whether there is a will which you may be able to find in their home. If you’re not sure if there is a will, or don’t know where it is, ask their solicitor, their bank, or their accountant if they have one. The will tells you what they want to happen with their estate and should name an executor who is the person responsible for dealing with everything. It may also contain details of what they want for a funeral.
• Arrange the funeral – You could pay a funeral director to organise everything or get in touch with the Cemeteries and Crematorium department of your local council and ask them to make arrangements.

If you can’t find a copy of the will in their home, their solicitor, their bank, or their accountant if they have one, will be able to help you. There will be at least one executor of the estate and you’ll find details of this written in the will. If you’re not the executor, you’ll need to tell whoever is about the death straight away as there are things they’ll need to do. A solicitor can help with this if needed.

If there’s no will, an administrator can be appointed. This works differently in different nations of the UK. Look on the government’s website for more information.

Firstly, please get in touch to let us know the person has died. You can call our Bereavement team on 0800 302 9108 Monday to Friday 9am – 5pm, or email us at Bereavement@lbgassetfinance.co.uk with a copy of the death certificate.

What happens with the vehicle needs to be decided by the administrators of the estate, so if you are one of the administrators, you’ll then be able to decide what happens next.

There are three options for the vehicle:

1.       Return the vehicle to us

If the decision is to return the vehicle, we won’t  charge any outstanding fees or charges to the estate, and we’ll arrange to collect the vehicle. If there have been any missed payments on the account, we’ll need to confirm with you, as the representative of the estate, whether these can be covered.

2.       Pay the outstanding balance to buy the vehicle

If the decision is to buy the vehicle, we’ll send you a closing statement to let you know how much  the estate will need to pay and what you need to do next. Once the vehicle has been bought, it will become part of the deceased’s estate.

3.       Keep the vehicle with ongoing payments

Please call us if the decision is to keep the vehicle and continue with the monthly payments. We’ll talk through the situation and understand how we can support with the next steps.