For instance, a death certificate allows the person's property to be distributed to heirs.
Peter Stefan revealed Tsarnaev's death certificate, showing gunshots and blunt trauma as the causes of death.
The death certificate now says she died as a result of "drowning and other undetermined factors".
Authorities expect to file a death certificate Friday, a day after Tamerlan's extended family claimed his body.
Among the more mundane, but important, is making sure all the information on the death certificate is correct.
It asked the United States to provide Russian consular representatives the relevant forensic documents, including a death certificate.
He read Tamerlan Tsarnaev 's death certificate to CNN over the phone Friday.
Then after you die, your beneficiaries present a death certificate to the financial institution and fill out a form.
It is not known whether the "blunt trauma" listed on Tamerlan Tsarnaev's death certificate relates to injuries from the car.
The official cause of death on his death certificate, released by Al-Wefaq, was listed as internal bleeding and gunshot wounds.
Even then, the service would not release digital assets without examining a copy of the customer's death certificate, Toeman said.
Tsarnaev's cause of death will not be released until the death certificate is filed with the Boston city clerk, he said.
Actress Natalie Wood's death certificate has been amended to reflect some of the lingering questions surrounding the star's death in 1981.
On orders from Saddam Hussein, Iraqi officials issued a false death certificate for one scientist, and he was sent into hiding.
"It doesn't become public record until the decedent remains have been released and the death certificate has been filed, " said Terrel Harris.
"I accepted it because that was on his death certificate, " she said.
The woman then used the death certificate to lodge fraudulent insurance claims.
She did not die of a heart attack but of a stroke, according to the death certificate signed by her personal physician.
Enable families of people missing presumed dead to get a certificate to that effect, with equal legal force to an ordinary death certificate.
As a result, she refused to accept his death certificate from the coroner and tracked down witnesses who said he was still conscious at 16:00.
He said arrangements must be made to release the body and once that happens a death certificate will be filed and the cause of death made public.
With these forms of ownership, your beneficiaries would simply need to provide a death certificate and a valid form of ID to take ownership of the property.
But in the case of a court-issued death certificate, "the person entitled, a spouse or kid, has to post a refunding bond", before the property is distributed, says Spencer.
The unexplained markings were cited in the report as significant factors that prompted officials to change Wood's death certificate last August from drowning to "drowning and other undetermined factors".
BBC: Natalie Wood may have had bruises before drowning - coroner
Her death certificate listed the cause of death as unknown, because Janelle was never able to afford a proper diagnosis, a diagnosis that with care might have saved her life.
After noticing the death certificate of his great-great-great-grandmother had omitted a cause of death, he made inquiries which revealed she was killed by "injuries inflicted on the head by someone unknown".
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