ROUTE
When someone close dies
The doctor, the registry office within three working days, burial under state law, and the long list of contracts, pensions and insurance β in order.
β Checked: 01/08/2026
When someone close dies, the administrative side arrives sooner than anyone is ready for. The order is strict and leaves little choice: first the doctor and their certificate, then the registry office on a very short deadline, then burial under the rules of your state, and only then the long list of contracts and benefits.
βΊ More about this route
This four-step route works through that sequence in full. It is not about grief but about not losing money and not missing deadlines in days when thinking clearly is barely possible. Each step ends with something to do, rather than something useful to know.
Burial law belongs to the federal states, so uniform national deadlines do not and cannot exist here. Everything about form and timing is settled for your own state, and funeral directors usually know those rules better than any reference work.
WHERE PEOPLE MOST OFTEN LOSE MONEY AND TIME
- Expecting contracts to end by themselves. Tenancy, insurance and subscriptions keep running and charging until each has been terminated separately with the death certificate enclosed.
- Ordering only one or two copies of the death certificate. Insurers, the bank, the pension authority, the landlord and a notary will each ask and each keep one β the return trip becomes a repeat performance.
- Postponing contact with the pension authority. Some survivor benefits carry short deadlines that cannot be made up later.
- Signing with a funeral director without asking about cost coverage. Retrospective claims are rarely accepted; estimates belong in writing with anything superfluous struck out.
FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS ABOUT THIS ROUTE
What is the very first step?βΎ
Call a doctor. For an expected death at home, the family or on-call doctor; for a sudden one, emergency services. Their medical certificate is the starting document: without it neither the registry office nor the funeral director nor the bank will act.
How long is there to notify the registry office?βΎ
The law requires notification by the third working day following the death. In practice the funeral director almost always handles it, but confirm that when you engage them.
What happens to the deceasedβs flat?βΎ
The tenancy does not end automatically. The law allows a defined group of people to take over and gives the parties a special right of termination within a set period. Hesitating here means the rent keeps running.