I thought I'd better pop my head round the door and clarify things
Harveys's Mum is right ... If a family literally has no money and the person who has died has absolutely no money or assets then the council/local health authority will step in to arrange and pay for a funeral
BUT:
1. The family have to step back from the funeral right from the beginning ... if they collect the paperwork from the hospital or register the death then they are legally responsible for arranging (and paying for) the funeral whether they have money or not.
2. The arranging of the funeral will take a lot longer than normal because the council/local HA don't do stuff quickly and will want to try to get someone in the family to pay before they fully commit to a 'public' funeral (which is what they are called).
3. Although the family will be notified of when/where the funeral will take place they will have no say whatsoever in what happens - they can't choose the coffin/vicar/what is said in the service etc - because they aren't paying for it and the council/LHA need to keep it as simple and cheap as possible because it's coming out of public funds.
If a family decide that they don't want to just step away like this then they might be able to get a Funeral Payment from the DSS ...
BUT:
1. They need to be on a 'qualifying benefit' (income support, income based JSA, Council Tax Benefit are the main ones) .... and ALL of the close family need to be claiming - if for example a man dies who has 5 children and just one is working then the DSS will tell them that the working one should be paying for the funeral.
2. Even at best the maximum that the DSS will pay is £700 + Disbursements (Disbursements are the fees that the Funeral Director has to pay out on the family's behalf - crematorium/burial fees and doctors fees). they won't pay for a vicar/officiant either because you don't actually need to have one for a funeral to take place.
3. That usually leaves families (in my area at least) with a shortfall of about £1200 plus - depending on what they have chosen ... if they have chosen a 'Basic Funeral' then it will be less but most basic funerals don't include a choice of coffin, Chapel of Rest visits, dressing the deceased in their own clothes and limousines (this is because as FDs we offer a reduced price for the 'Basic' based on savings made in man hours).
Most Funeral Directors will offer families the opportunity to pay over a period of time - but it is only fair that if a family needs to do that then they should try to keep their bill as low as possible (what my Grandmother used to call 'cutting your suit to fit the cloth').... for example I have a family for whom I did a funeral for 3 years ago who ordered horse drawn hearse, multiple limousines and loads of extras. At the time of booking they swore black was blue that they could pay for it but to date I have still received less than 2 thirds of the bill
Yesterday another one of their family members died and they rang me to arrange his funeral
When we went to convey the person who had passed away we found a detached house with several family members' cars in the drive with personalised numberplates
....This time I'm afraid that they will have to pay at least the disbursements up front ... With the economic situation as it is and with the large companies/groups asking for substantial deposits from families, the small independents like us are finding that up to 50% of the clients we are getting simply can't pay
and if we keep on letting people book expensive funerals without the means to pay for them quickly then we will end up going under (which has happened to one of the local small firms already this year).
I know it's a sensitive issue but at the end of the day Funeral Directors are businesses ... we aren't subsidised by Govt, our buildings have to be rented/maintained, we have to pay full business rates, our gas, electric, telephones and water are billed at business rates with full VAT, our vehicles have to be maintained, serviced, taxed, insured and fuelled, we have to pay wages, employers NI, business tax and VAT. We need to purchase raw materials for coffins and for the preparation of the deceased - plus all of our admin costs like paper, printing ink, office equipment.... it all adds up and the margins are pretty small, so if half the work we do is being paid for in small amounts over years then it's easy to end up in trouble
I'm not rolling in money myself (far from it) ... but I have a pre-paid funeral plan which costs me £20 a month (until it's all paid off - a total of £3000) so that my kids won't have to worry when the time comes.
your parents may have taken out life insurances to pay out if they die too x
