One of the most common questions early on in funeral arrangements is how do I get a death certificate? And one of the most common misconceptions is that the doctor themselves produced the death certificate. In fact, a lot of GPs will actually say to you, I will sign the death certificate. They are not signing the death certificate. They are signing the certificate as to the cause of death. It is not the death certificate. The death certificate itself is a document that comes from the Registrar General, the Registrar of Births and Deaths and Marriages.
Now that the document is completed with the funeral director when you’re sitting with them. It’s quite a complicated and long document, and we’ll give you a link to the details required for that document. But very simply, we register for you with the Registrar General. It’s done electronically. The doctor sends the medical certificate electronically and the two are married up and produce the death certificate, the New Zealand death certificate. Now that is a legal document required for all sorts of legal issues, not just to do with the funeral but thereafter. And part of that registration is that we can’t register the death till we can say when and where that person was buried or cremated.
So it doesn’t exist at the beginning of the stage of making funeral arrangements and it’s quite a helpful thing to understand that no one is going to require that at the time of the funeral. So if you’ve got any questions about the death certificate, see your funeral director, and they can help you. And ultimately, the Registrar will send that death certificate to the funeral director within three or four or five days after the funeral, the cremation or the burial, and they will get that to you as soon as possible.
If you want to know more information,
click the link in our bio. https://kapiticoastfuneralhome.co.nz/forms
https://kapiticoastfuneralhome.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Notification-of-Death-for-Registration.pdf
https://kapiticoastfuneralhome.co.nz/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/Notification-of-Death-for-Registration-Adobe-Form.pdf
