Are you a healthcare professional?
If you're submitting paperwork or supporting a family with an urgent burial, use our guidance for medical and bereavement staff instead.
If a burial needs to take place within 24 hours of death for religious reasons, we may be able to issue the paperwork needed for the funeral before the death is registered.
- Email registeroffice@manchester.gov.uk as soon as possible.
- Include URGENT FAITH DEATH in the subject line.
You can contact us yourself or ask your funeral director to do this on your behalf.
Before you contact us
To issue the necessary burial paperwork, we must first receive the required paperwork from:
- the Medical Examiner; or
- the Coroner.
If there is a problem with the paperwork, we may not be able to issue the burial paperwork until it has been resolved.
Information to include in your email
Please include:
- the name of the person who died
- the date and place of death
- the date and place of the planned burial
- the name of the person arranging the funeral
- a telephone number where that person can be contacted
- whether the death has been referred to the Coroner, if known
- the name and email address of the funeral director, if known.
Please nominate one family member as the main contact.
Multiple enquiries about the same death can delay the process.
What happens next
A registrar will always call you.
If we can issue the burial authority, we'll send it to you or your funeral director by email.
Please don't visit Manchester Register Office to request or collect the burial authority. We cannot deal with these requests in the office.
Registering the death
The death must still be registered within five days.
Wherever possible, we will complete the death registration with you over the phone before issuing the paperwork for the funeral. We'll also explain how to order death certificates.
If a death occurs outside normal office hours and the body needs to be removed from the country, email registeroffice@manchester.gov.uk and we'll contact you as soon as possible.
Availability
Monday to Friday
A registrar is available from 8.30am to 3.30pm.
Requests received later in the day may not be dealt with until the next working day, although we'll always try to help.
Please note that the office closes at 1pm on the first Tuesday of every month.
Saturday
A registrar is available from 9am to 12.30pm.
Sunday and bank holidays
A registrar is available from 9am to 1.30pm.