Check if a person is deceased

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Check the bereavement register to ascertain whether or not a person is deceased.

Screen your marketing data against our deceased persons data to ensure contact with deceased persons is not attempted. This helps to minimise the distress caused to relatives and avoid any negative publicity for your organisation.

Where available, we will also give you a date of death.

Please note that if you intend to screen 100 or more people, you should use our deceased_bulk method, which is more cost-effective and efficient.

API method to use: deceased
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Credits per use: 10

Mandatory Parameters


Name Description
api_key or javascript_key Use your API key if invoking server-side. If invoking from the browser via JavaScript, generate a JavaScript key using the javascript_key method.
postcode The UK postal code.
surname The person's surname.
forename The person's first name.
premises The house number or name.

Optional Parameters


Name Description
client You can optionally include an identifier for your final client or user. This is logged in your usage log and you will be able to view your usage statistics by client.
output Set to json for a JSON response; the default response is XML. Not applicable to the SOAP API.
callback When using JSON, specify a JSONP wrapper in which the JSON response is to be wrapped.
street The street name.

Returned Values


The XML response is contained within a <deceased_res> element.

Name Description
status Returns ok if the operation has succeeded, or error if an error has occurred; Returns the error_code for error details.
error_code Returns the error code when the status is error. See below for error codes.
t2a_version_number The current API version number.
credit_used The number of credits used in order to execute the request.
mode Returns normal or test when executed in the free test mode.
date_of_death The actual date of death, where known, in the format YYYY-MM-DD.
date_of_death_estimated The actual date of death where only estimated, in the format YYYY-MM-DD.

Error Codes


See the common error codes. There are no errors which are specific to this method.

Free Test Mode


When operating in the free test mode errors are returned if mandatory parameters are missing, or it returns a dummy data response, in an identical format to a real response.

Note that the mode is returned as test when the method is operating in the free test mode.

Example XML Response



<?xml version="1.0"?>
<deceased_res>
  <mode>test</mode>
  <t2a_version_number>1.0.0</t2a_version_number>
  <status>ok</status>
  <date_of_death>1942-02-34</date_of_death>
  <date_of_death_estimated/>
</deceased_res>

Example JSON Response

{
  "date_of_death":"1942-02-34",
  "date_of_death_estimated":"",
  "mode":"test",
  "t2a_version_number":"1.0.0",
  "status":"ok"
}

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Number of checks: 50 Price per check: 50p