When a person in the family expires, the surviving family members such as Spouse, Sons, Daughter has to obtain a certificate which is referred as Family Member or Proper Person Certificate.
Apply In-Person

1. Applicant can approach respective Tahsildar / MRO(Mandal Revenue Officer) office to apply in person.
2. Link for contact details : link please select the district name provided at the bottom of the page under “Districts” to reach respective district portal. Here select the menu option “ABOUT DISTRICT” > “Who’s Who” for contact details. Also for block level the following link will be useful. link Under “View Block Website” user shall select the respective district from drop down list for “District” prompt and then select respective block under “Block” prompt to get new page. Here, please select “Contact directory” tab from the provided tabs to get contact list for contact details for Block development office.
3. Application form can be obtained from the office while applicant visits. OR Applicant shall write an application on an A4 paper. Please affix the advised stamp on the paper as per requirement.
4. Please go to the respective office and submit the completed application form along with the required document to the respective authorities.
5. Authorities after receiving the application will check the attached documents and details. If all are in place, they will make entries in their registry and provide you record number for reference.
6. Tahsildar OR respective authority will assign the application for further processing to the Village Administrative Officer (VAO) and MRO OR the authorities concerned.
7. There will be a ground level verification and scrutiny of the documents and details will be made against the details provided by the above authorities.
8. Once the verification is over, these officials will submit their report to the Tahsildar OR respective authority to decide and issue the Certificate to the applicant with the names of all legal heirs of the deceased.
9. Applicant will get the certificate after due verification
   

Note : In some cases applicant might be asked to contact a lawyer in District Civil Court to get it done.

Apply through Centres:

1. To apply through centres, the applicant has to visit the respective “CSC” centre. Please tap on the following link to locate the centre according to the respective district: link.
2. Make sure to have the documents that are listed under the “Required Documents” section of this page.
3. It is advised to take the documents in original to the kiosk for scanning purposes.
4. The operator will process the application online.
5. On successful submission, the applicant will receive an application number as acknowledgement.
6. An inspection will be held by the authorities.
7. The status, viz. Approval or Rejection if any, will be conveyed to the applicant through an SMS.
8. If approved, the certificate will be hand delivered or sent through post to the address mentioned while applying or issued in a stipulated period of time.

• Application form.
• Your identity documents such as Permanent Account Number (PAN), Ration card, Aadhar card
• Ration card, EPIC Card
• Aadhaar card
• Date of birth certificate such as 10th Standard certificate
• Death Certificate (of the deceased)
• Proof of residence such as Voters card, Electricity Bill, Telephone Bill
• Passport size photographs
• A Gazette officer attested and duly signed bond paper on the pro forma.

Collector-Cum-District Magistrate Commissionerate,
Gandhi Maidan, Near Bus Stand,
Collectorate, Patna, Bihar 800004
Contact No: 0612 221 9545


Contact Link: Contacts link
Contact Link: link.

Wife or Husband or Son or Daughter or Mother may apply for family member certificate respectively as applicable.

• Authorities shall provide further information. Please pay as authorities quote.
• Stamp charges (as affixed on the application)

The validity period of this certificate has been enhanced to life long as per GO

Please attach documents which can be used by people who would like to follow this procedure.    

Please attach sample completed documents which would help other people who would like to follow this procedure.

If your application is fair and complete, the processing time will be one week to one month.

Videos explaining the procedure or to fill the applications. 
Attach videos using the following tag <&video type="website">video ID|width|height<&/video&> from external websites.
Please remove the "&" inside the tags during implementation.
Website = allocine, blip, dailymotion, facebook, gametrailers, googlevideo, html5, metacafe, myspace, revver, 
sevenload, viddler, vimeo, youku, youtube
width = 560, height = 340, Video ID = Can be obtained from the URL of webpage where the video is displayed.
e.g In the following url "http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0US7oR_t3M" Video ID is "Y0US7oR_t3M".

• You can obtain a Family Member Certificate by applying in person.
• You should have valid documents such as ration card, pan card, voter id card.
• You should manually complete the application forms and submit in the respective office of your area.
• The applicant should submit passport size photographs with the application.

The following information is required to complete the application form.

• Full Name of the applicant
• Other family member’s names (who are alive)
• Applicants Date of birth
• Relationship to the applicant
• Every family member’s date of birth
• Every applicant’s occupation
• Passport Size photographs of the applicant
• Gazetted officer should duly attest the application form
• Gazetted officer should duly sign on the bond paper with the proper pro forma.
• Xerox copy of the family head death certificate
• Xerox copy of the completed application

• If the head or a member of the family expires, the next direct family member of the deceased such as the wife or husband or son or daughter or mother may apply for family member / proper person certificate for the purpose of transferring Electricity connection, House Tax, Telephone connection/patta transfer, Bank Account, etc.
• If the person who died is a Government servant, Family Member Certificate is issued for sanction of family pension, and for getting appointment on compassionate grounds.
• To establish relationship for claims relating to Insurance, pension, retirement benefits or service benefits of central and state government departments, Government undertakings etc.
• In legal succession cases to get succession certificate to establish the relationship
• This certificate is required to claim the bank balance that was unclaimed by the account holder after death.

• This certificate can be used for several years.
• Fill the application details correctly without any mistake.
• Family member certificate is not a Legal Heir certificate

NOTE : It is a punishable offense to try with fraudulent documents to get a Family member certificate

Please explain what are other uses of obtaining this document/certificate.
e.g. Birth Certificate can be used as proof of identity.

Place some external links which might help.

More information which might help people.