Standard edition
If you need the answers.
£14One payment
- The full 96-page guide as a PDF
- The five questions, and the page each answer sends you to
- The deadlines on one page
- The weekly checklists
Someone has died.
Almost none of it has to happen today.
A practical guide to the first thirty days: what to do now, what can wait, what to ask, and what to keep track of.
The first week
A great deal arrives at once.
Forms. Decisions. A funeral director with a diary open. A bank asking for a document nobody has explained. Relatives who need telling, and one who needs telling gently.
Some of it carries a deadline. Most of it does not. Nothing about the way it arrives tells you which is which.
That is the part this book is for.
The information exists. The order does not.
Nearly everything in this book can be found somewhere. On GOV.UK. In a leaflet handed over at a desk. In a letter from a solicitor, or a conversation you were too tired to follow. That is precisely the difficulty. It is scattered across dozens of places, written for people who are not grieving, and it reaches you in whatever order the world happens to send it.
The First 30 Days does one thing. It puts the practical aftermath of a death into a sequence a person can actually follow: what to do first, what can safely wait weeks, what carries a deadline nobody will mention, what to ask before agreeing to anything, and what to write down while you still can.
It is short where it can be and specific where it matters. It is written to be read at two in the morning by someone who has not slept.
Where it stops
It is not legal or financial advice. Where a question genuinely needs a solicitor — an insolvent estate, a disputed funeral, a tenancy where someone's home is at stake — the book says so plainly and points you to free advice first.
Page two
Answer five questions.
This is the opening page of the book, working. It costs nothing, and on most nights it is the only page anyone needs.
The First 30 DaysPage 2
Every part of the book opens like this: what it solves, and the two or three things worth doing before anything else.
The deadlines
Grief is not on a schedule. Nine things are.
Nobody writes to remind you about these. It is the page families cut out and put where they will see it.
- 5 days from medical examiner confirmation Register the death (8 days in Scotland)
- 4 days minimum Coroner permission, if the funeral is abroad — apply before you want the body moved
- 2 months minimum Creditor notice period — distribute nothing before it ends
- 28 days from receiving the reference Use Tell Us Once
- 3 months from the death Claim Bereavement Support Payment for the full amount
- 6 months from the death Pay any Inheritance Tax, to avoid interest
- 12 months from the death Report the estate's value on IHT400, if tax is due
- 21 months from the death Last point Bereavement Support Payment can usually be claimed at all
- Watch for no fixed date The end date of any council tax exemption
£3,500then 18 × £350
Bereavement Support Payment is not means-tested, and nobody claims it on your behalf. Claim within three months of the death and you receive the lump sum and all eighteen monthly payments. Leave it a year and the lump sum is gone. Leave it twenty-one months and usually all of it is.
Higher rate, at the rates published at the time of writing. The guide sets out who qualifies, what the lower rate pays, and where to check today's figures on GOV.UK.
Inside the book
Made to be read at two in the morning.
Wide margins. Short paragraphs. Tables you can fill in by hand. Nothing to decode, and no page that assumes you read the one before it.
Ninety-six pages, produced as a book and not as a PDF that happens to be long.
Read it on a phone at two in the morning, or print it and write in the margins. Both were designed for.
Contents
Six parts, in the order things happen.
It is not meant to be read front to back. Each part opens by saying what it solves and what to do first, so you can arrive at any page in any state and be useful within a minute.
Start here
The five questions
Where the death happened, whether a coroner has been mentioned, and what you have been asked to agree to. It sends you to one page and tells you to stop there.
Part I
The first six hours, and registering the death
What actually happens and who does it. What a coroner's involvement does and does not mean. Then the appointment, the documents to bring, and how many certified copies to buy.
Part II
Week one — the funeral
The conversation you are least prepared for and most likely to overpay in, with a comparison sheet built on the same rows as the statutory price list.
Part III
Telling people
Banks, insurers, employers, pension providers, the council, and the digital accounts nobody thinks of until later. What Tell Us Once covers, and what it leaves for you.
Part IV
Money — what comes in
The shortest part, and worth more per page than anything else in the book. Bereavement Support Payment, and the list most families miss at least two things on.
Part V
The estate — what goes out
The letters demanding money, what the estate owes and what you personally do not, the creditor notice period, and the point at which an hour of paid advice is the cheapest thing you will buy.
Also inside
- The deadlines on one page, with a column for your dates
- The funeral quotation comparison sheet
- Ready-to-use letters and notification templates
- What to say when you are being rushed for a date
- Practical checklists for each week
- Where to get free debt and housing advice, and when
The author
He wrote the book he needed.
Dr Camilo Garcia is a medical doctor. He knows, personally, how difficult it is to lose someone you love — and how much harder those first days become when clear practical information is hard to find.
After going through the confusion himself, he set out to build something calm and specific: the information, the questions worth asking and the checklists that help a family through the first thirty days with a little more clarity.
The intention is a modest one. Nobody should have to face those days feeling unprepared simply because they did not know where to begin.
What to do now.
What can wait.
Get the guide
Two editions. The same book.
The Standard edition is the manual. The Full edition adds the parts you write on — the quotation sheet, the deadline page laid out for your dates, and the letters you can send without drafting them.
Full edition
If you are the one doing it.
£29One payment
- Everything in the Standard edition
- The funeral quotation comparison sheet, as a printable worksheet
- The deadlines page with a column for your dates, ready to fill in
- Ready-to-use letters and notification templates
- Free updates whenever figures or rules change
Instant download, both editions
England & Wales
Refund within 30 days if it isn't what you need
Before you buy
Questions.
Is this legal advice?
No. It is a practical guide. Where a question genuinely needs a solicitor, it says so plainly and tells you where to get free advice first.
Does it apply to Scotland or Northern Ireland?
It is written for England and Wales. Registration timings, probate and several of the deadlines differ elsewhere, so if you are dealing with a death in Scotland or Northern Ireland this is not the right guide for you.
What is the difference between the two editions?
The book is the same. The Standard edition is the guide itself. The Full edition adds the working documents — the quotation sheet as a printable worksheet, the deadlines page laid out for your dates, and the notification letters ready to send.
What do I actually receive?
A PDF, immediately after payment, at the email address you buy with. No app, no login, no subscription.
Do I have to read all of it?
No, and you shouldn't try. Answer the five questions on page two, turn to the page it sends you to, and stop there. The rest waits until you need it.
Will the figures be out of date?
Rates and thresholds change every year, so the book prints almost no figures. Where a number matters you get the reasoning, the deadline, and the place to look up the current amount. Where a figure is printed, it is dated.