When someone dies at home: the first hour nobody tells you about

This is written for partners, adult children and close friends who are present at the moment of death. It assumes the death was expected — illness, old age, a palliative trajectory already in motion. Sudden, unexplained or unnatural deaths follow a different path, briefly described at the end.

The legal frame: there is more time than people think

Dutch funeral law, the Wet op de lijkbezorging (Burial and Cremation Act), allows the body to remain at home for up to six working days between the death and the burial or cremation. The clock does not start ticking the moment the breath stops. The body does not need to be moved within hours. There is no penalty for sitting beside it for an evening, a night, a morning. This is one of the more humane corners of Dutch law and most families do not know it exists until they need it.

Inside that six-day window, opbaring (laying out at home) for one to three days is common. The funeral director, when called, brings cooling equipment that allows the body to remain in the room without health risk. Many families find that the days between death and farewell are exactly the days they need: time for grandchildren to come, for distant relatives to travel, for the household to absorb what has happened.

What this means for the first hour is simple. There is no rush.

The only call you have to make

In the first hour after a death at home, exactly one call is required: the doctor.

• On a weekday between 08:00 and 17:00, call your own huisarts (general practitioner). The number is on your repeat prescription, on the practice website, in your phone if you have ever called it before.
• Evenings, nights, weekends, and public holidays, call your regional huisartsenpost (out-of-hours GP service). There is no national number — each region has its own (for example 088-00 30 600 for Huisartsenposten Amsterdam). The easiest way to find yours: check your huisarts's website or voicemail message, where the out-of-hours number is always listed. Save it in your phone now.

There is no other emergency number for an expected death at home. 112 is for medical emergencies — for someone who is dying and might still be saved, not for someone who has already died. Calling 112 after an expected death will bring an ambulance crew that cannot do anything and will then have to wait for the GP anyway.

What to say when the call connects

The doctor or the assistant on the line is used to this call. You do not have to explain the medical history. A short, clear sentence is enough.

In Dutch:

"Mijn partner is zojuist overleden. Hij lag thuis in palliatieve zorg. Kunt u langskomen voor de schouwing?" ("My partner has just died. He was at home in palliative care. Can you come for the formal examination?")

You can substitute "vader" (father), "moeder" (mother), "vrouw" (wife), "man" (husband), "broer" (brother), "zus" (sister) as appropriate.

In English, if you cannot manage Dutch in this moment:

"My father has just died at home. He was under palliative care. Please send a doctor to confirm the death."

The line will ask for the address, your name, your phone number, and the name and date of birth of the person who has died. They will tell you roughly when a doctor will arrive — usually within an hour or two, sometimes longer at night.

What not to do in the first hour

There are three calls people often want to make immediately. None of them belongs first.

• Do not call the funeral director (uitvaartondernemer) yet. The funeral director cannot collect the body or begin opbaring until a doctor has confirmed the death and issued the paperwork. Calling them first creates a wait at your front door.
• Do not call the wider family yet. A flurry of phone calls in the first hour means you spend that hour managing other people's reactions instead of being in the room. Send the news once the doctor has come and the immediate steps are clear. Two or three close people — a sibling, a best friend, the person you most want beside you — is enough for now.
• Do not move the body, undress it, or "tidy" it. The doctor needs to see the body as it died for the schouwing (lijkschouw: the formal external examination of the body, not an autopsy). You can close the eyes and the mouth gently if you wish; that is normal and expected. Anything more, including washing, can wait.

What the doctor does

When the huisarts arrives, the visit is short and structured. The doctor will:

1. Confirm the death. This is a brief examination — checking for breathing, heartbeat, pupil response. The doctor will note the time at which death is officially recorded (which may differ from the moment you remember the last breath).
2. Fill in two forms if the death was natural. For an expected death at the end of a known illness, the doctor fills in the verklaring van overlijden (declaration of death), usually called the A-formulier or A-verklaring. It states that the death was natural, and the gemeente (municipality) needs it to register the death and allow the burial or cremation. At the same time the doctor fills in the B-formulier, the doodsoorzaakverklaring (cause-of-death form). It records the medical cause of death for Statistics Netherlands (CBS) and goes in a sealed envelope, or straight to CBS digitally. You do not open it.
3. Call the gemeentelijk lijkschouwer if the death may not be natural. If the doctor is not satisfied that the death was natural — for instance an unexpected death, a fall, an accident, a death without a known illness to explain it — they do not fill in the verklaring van overlijden. The law requires them to call the gemeentelijk lijkschouwer (municipal forensic doctor) instead. The lijkschouwer comes to the house, examines the body, and, if the death was not natural, reports it to the officier van justitie (public prosecutor), who decides whether the police need to look further. This is procedure, not accusation. The lijkschouwer is also always called after euthanasia and when someone under 18 dies.
4. Hand over the paperwork and step back. Once the forms are filled in, the doctor's job is done. They will usually ask whether you have a funeral director in mind and whether you want them to call. They will offer condolences, briefly, and leave you with the body and the documents. Keep both together for the funeral director, who takes them to the gemeente.

What happens after the doctor leaves

This is the moment when the six-day window starts to make sense. With the verklaring van overlijden in hand, you have time. A typical sequence over the next hours and the next day looks like this.

• Sit with the body for as long as you want. Many people find that the first sustained quiet — after the call, after the doctor — is the moment grief actually arrives. There is no schedule for this. The body changes slowly in the first hours; the room stays calm.
• Decide who else should be in the room. Adult children, grandchildren, close friends, a priest or ritueelbegeleider (ceremonial leader) if relevant. Children, if you have them and they want to come, are not harmed by seeing a body that has just died. Dutch hospice and VPTZ guidance is consistent on this.
• Call the funeral director when you are ready. Most funeral directors in the Netherlands operate a 24-hour line. They will ask whether you want collection now or whether you want opbaring at home. If opbaring at home, they will arrive within hours with cooling equipment (often a koelplaat, a cooling plate placed under the body, or koelinstallatie) and help you prepare the room.
• Begin telling the wider circle. A short, factual message is usually easier than a phone call: "Vader is vanmorgen rustig overleden. We laten het jullie weten zodra de uitvaart geregeld is." ("Father died peacefully this morning. We will let you know as soon as the funeral is arranged.")
• Sleep, eat, drink water. The first 24 hours after a death involve more decisions than most people make in a week. The body in the next room is not waiting for any of them.

When the death is not expected

If the death is sudden — a collapse, an accident, an unexplained event — the path is different and faster. Call 112 if there is any chance the person can still be helped. If it is clear they have died, the huisarts (or your regional huisartsenpost out of hours) is still the right call, and if the doctor cannot be sure the death was natural, they will call the gemeentelijk lijkschouwer. The home becomes, briefly, a more formal place: the police may attend, and the lijkschouwer examines the body before anything else happens. If the death was not natural, the body can only be released for the funeral once the officier van justitie (public prosecutor) gives permission, and the usual six-working-day limit can be extended to allow for that. This is procedure whenever a doctor cannot confirm a natural death, including a sudden collapse at home in someone without a known illness. It is not a judgement on the family.

In the app

In the app, your Personal Portal includes a Guide for Your Family. At your own pace you write down who should be called first and what they should do, who else to tell and when, where important things are, and any wishes for the hours afterwards (for example whether you want opbaring at home, or who should be in the room). The app is for you; your family does not log in to it. Everything you record becomes part of your Zorgmap, a PDF you print or hand to the people you trust, so the people at your bedside have it on paper in the first hour.

Request access →

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Sources

1. Rijksoverheid — Wet op de lijkbezorging (Burial and Cremation Act), including the six working-day window. https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005009
2. KNMG — Lijkschouw: the verklaring van overlijden (A-formulier), the doodsoorzaakverklaring (B-formulier) and when to call the gemeentelijk lijkschouwer. https://www.knmg.nl/actueel/dossiers/levenseinde-2/na-overlijden/lijkschouw
3. CBS — Over de doodsoorzaakverklaring (het B-formulier). https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/deelnemers-enquetes/decentrale-overheden/overzicht/doodsoorzaakverklaring
4. Huisartsenposten Amsterdam — out-of-hours number for Amsterdam and surroundings. https://huisartsenpostenamsterdam.nl/en/