Redirecting Post After a Death¶

The post keeps coming. Bills, statements, charity appeals, renewal notices, letters from companies you've never heard of. For weeks and sometimes months, the daily delivery is a reminder that the person's life is still woven into systems that haven't yet caught up.

The post also matters practically. Important documents arrive in the months after a death — tax letters, pension statements, dormant savings accounts the family didn't know existed — and they are often the only way those accounts come to light. Redirecting the post is not just emotional housekeeping; it's how the estate gets fully accounted for.

This guide covers the three things to set up, how they fit together, and what to do about the unfamiliar mail that turns up while everything else is being sorted.

If you can only do one thing today: Set up a Royal Mail bereavement redirection for at least 6 months. It is the only service that physically forwards post to a new address; without it, important letters sit in an empty house. Register the deceased with the Bereavement Register and the Mailing Preference Service at the same time; both are free and reduce unsolicited mail. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

What each service does, and why you need all three¶

The three services do different jobs and overlap only at the edges.

The Royal Mail bereavement redirection is the only service that physically moves post from one address to another. It catches everything sent through Royal Mail's network — letters, small packets, registered post — and forwards it to the executor's address, the next of kin's address, or wherever you nominate. It does not stop the mail being sent; it just ensures you see it. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

The Bereavement Register works at the source. It removes the deceased's name and address from the marketing lists used by charities, banks, retailers, and consumer brands. Effects build over about six weeks as participating senders refresh their lists. [source: bereavement-register/home-2026-04-29.html]

The Mailing Preference Service does the same job for a different set of senders. It uses the Direct Marketing Association's industry list, which catches mailers the Bereavement Register misses. Full effect takes 2 to 4 months as in-flight campaigns finish landing. [source: mps/home-2026-04-29.html]

The right move is to do all three: redirect for the post you do want to see, suppress the post you don't, and accept that some unsolicited mail will keep arriving for a few months until the suppression catches up.

Royal Mail redirection: the practical detail¶

The bereavement variant works the same as a standard redirection but accepts a death certificate, a grant of probate, or a letter from the funeral director as proof of bereavement, in place of the usual tenancy or utility-bill evidence. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

Pricing. Three terms are offered: 3 months at £35.99, 6 months at £48.99, 12 months at £68.99. Pricing is per-deceased rather than per-address; if more than one person at the same address has died, you set up separate redirections. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

How long to redirect for. Six months is usually the right answer. It covers the period when banks, pension providers, insurers, and HMRC are still updating their records, and most of the financial admin tails off by then. Twelve months is worth considering for estates with annual cycles — investment accounts, premium bonds, life-insurance renewals — that send their main correspondence once a year. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

How to set it up. Online at royalmail.com/redirection takes about ten minutes; the redirection usually starts within five working days. The same form is available at any Post Office branch. Phone applications are accepted on 03457 740740, weekdays 8 to 6 and Saturday mornings, but they are slower because Royal Mail posts a paper form for completion and return. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

What it covers and what it doesn't. Royal Mail handles letters, small packets, and registered or tracked deliveries sent through its own network. Parcels delivered by other couriers — DPD, Evri, UPS, DHL, Amazon's own logistics — are unaffected. If the deceased was a regular online shopper, expect courier deliveries to keep arriving at the original address; the answer there is to contact the retailer directly with the new address. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

Renewal. Royal Mail does not offer an open-ended redirection; the term you pick is the term you get, and it must be renewed before it lapses. A redirection that has already expired requires a fresh application, not a renewal. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

The Bereavement Register: stopping marketing mail at source¶

Registration is free and done online at thebereavementregister.org.uk. It takes about ten minutes; you provide the deceased's name, last address, and date of death. [source: bereavement-register/home-2026-04-29.html]

Effects appear gradually as participating organisations refresh their lists. Most families see a noticeable drop in marketing mail within about 6 weeks. Some senders take longer because their lists are refreshed less often. [source: bereavement-register/home-2026-04-29.html]

The service catches charity appeals, retail catalogues, financial-services marketing, and most consumer-brand direct mail. It does not stop mail from organisations the deceased had a direct account with — banks, utility companies, pension providers, the council. Those organisations need to be notified separately because their mail is account correspondence rather than marketing, and they aren't on the Bereavement Register's distribution list at all. [source: bereavement-register/home-2026-04-29.html]

The Mailing Preference Service: a different industry list¶

The Mailing Preference Service (MPS) covers a different industry segment — Direct Marketing Association members and the senders who clean their lists against the MPS file. [source: mps/home-2026-04-29.html]

Full effect takes between 2 and 4 months. The delay is structural: direct-mail campaigns are prepared weeks in advance, and campaigns already in flight will continue to land before the suppression catches them. After about three months, the volume drops markedly. [source: mps/home-2026-04-29.html]

Registration is free at mpsonline.org.uk. MPS does not stop mail from companies the deceased had a prior relationship with, charities they previously donated to, or small local businesses that don't use the industry suppression files. Those still need direct notification. [source: mps/home-2026-04-29.html]

Letters from companies you've never heard of¶

This is the part of the post that does the most useful work. Among the marketing and the renewal notices, you will receive letters from financial institutions the deceased had accounts with that the family didn't know about. This is common.

What turns up:

Statements from dormant savings accounts opened years ago and largely forgotten.
Premium bond holdings from NS&I, sometimes acquired decades ago and never cashed.
Old pension pots from previous employers, including small pots under the auto-enrolment thresholds.
Endowment policies taken out alongside mortgages in the 1980s and 1990s.
Investment accounts with platforms or funds the family wasn't aware of.
Life insurance that may have been written in trust, in which case it pays directly to the named beneficiaries and does not form part of the estate.

For each unfamiliar letter:

Note the company name, the account or policy number, and any reference numbers.
Phone the company's bereavement team. Most have one; ask for it by name.
Provide the death certificate details and ask for the date-of-death balance or value.
Add the account or policy to the probate inventory. Even small dormant balances need to be included in the estate valuation.

Don't assume small accounts are not worth tracing. A balance of fifty or a hundred pounds in a forgotten savings account still belongs to the estate and must be accounted for. The post is often how those accounts come to light at all.

Subscriptions and renewal notices¶

Alongside the financial post, you'll receive renewal notices for ongoing subscriptions: magazines, streaming services, gym memberships, professional bodies, software, online services. Each one is a small admin task.

The standard sequence is straightforward:

Contact the company in writing or by phone.
Provide the date of death.
Cancel the subscription with effect from the date of death (or earlier if the service was prepaid).
Ask for a refund of any unused prepaid period; this is paid to the estate, not to the executor personally.

Recurring direct debits are easier to spot if you have access to the deceased's bank statements. Working through three months of statements and listing every recurring payment usually catches most subscriptions; the rest will surface in the post over the following weeks.

A few specific situations¶

Post arriving at a care home or hospital. Mail addressed to someone who lived in a care home or died in hospital will continue to arrive there for some time. Ask the facility to forward unopened mail to the executor's address while the redirection is being set up, and update the redirection address with Royal Mail.

Post addressed to a business. If the deceased ran a business or was a sole trader, business correspondence will arrive at the registered business address rather than home. That address needs to be handled separately, including notifying HMRC of the change of business circumstances. The personal Royal Mail redirection does not cover business addresses.

Post that's returned to sender. Bank cards, PINs, and security documents are sometimes returned to sender by the post office if the redirection isn't yet active or if the sender has marked the envelope "do not redirect." This is normal and not a problem; contact the issuer directly and ask them to reissue to the executor's address.

Cards and personal letters. Personal mail — birthday cards from people who don't yet know about the death, letters from old friends — keeps arriving for months. There's no clean way to stop it; the simplest approach is a short note in reply explaining what's happened, when you have the energy.

You're entitled to open the post¶

As executor or next of kin, you have the legal right to open mail addressed to the deceased for the purpose of administering the estate. You don't need separate authority. This is sometimes phrased as a question by family members who feel intrusive opening a parent's letters; it isn't intrusive in the legal sense, and it's how you discover what needs handling.

That said, the emotional weight of opening someone else's post can take time to recede. Most executors find a routine helps: set aside one evening a week, sort it into financial / utility / personal / junk, and work through one category at a time.

When to stop the redirection¶

By around six months, most banks, pension providers, insurers, and government departments will have updated their records and post to the deceased's name will have largely tailed off. By twelve months, the volume is usually down to occasional renewal correspondence and stragglers.

Royal Mail does not offer an open-ended bereavement redirection, and renewing year after year quickly becomes uneconomical. Most families let the redirection lapse at the 6 or 12 month mark and handle any remaining post by contacting the few stragglers individually. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

If post addressed to the deceased is still arriving in significant volume after a year, it usually means a financial institution has not yet been notified. Note the sender, contact them directly, and add them to the estate's notification list.

Scotland and Northern Ireland¶

The Royal Mail redirection service, the Bereavement Register, and the Mailing Preference Service all operate UK-wide on identical terms. The processes, costs, and timelines are the same in Scotland and Northern Ireland as in England and Wales. [source: royal-mail/redirection-bereavement-2026-04-29.txt]

What this guide doesn't cover¶

This guide is about post addressed to the deceased. Notifying companies the deceased had active accounts with — banks, utilities, the council, pension providers — is a separate administrative job covered by the relevant guides on bank accounts, council tax, and pensions after death. The post often surfaces accounts you didn't know about, but the actual notification is done directly with each institution rather than through the redirection.

It also doesn't cover digital subscriptions and online services, which are largely outside Royal Mail's redirection. Those need handling through each provider's bereavement process.

If you're struggling, you don't have to do this alone. Samaritans (116 123, 24/7) | Cruse Bereavement Care (0808 808 1677) | Mind (0300 123 3393)

Next: How to apply for probate

Last verified: 29 April 2026 against the Royal Mail bereavement redirection service, the Bereavement Register, and the Mailing Preference Service.