Memorial stone rip off

Ivory_Tinkler

letsbehonest wrote: »

Reading the reply's to my original posting it obviously prevoked some heated comment. The term rip off was my first thought, perhaps I should have said "gosh this is jolly expensive". this is the break down of the expense.
Erecting and fixing... £210.
Inscription...£204.40.
Disbursement
to Hither Green Cemetery.....£59.00.
vat..£62.16
Total.... £535.56.
My main vent is this £59.00 payable to the local Council, we already payed once for the original grave, why again? maybe it goes towards the upkeep of the graves (which is not very good at all )

Nice to see the government getting their cut as well :mad:

voiceofreason

letsbehonest wrote: »

Reading the reply's to my original posting it obviously prevoked some heated comment. The term rip off was my first thought, perhaps I should have said "gosh this is jolly expensive". this is the break down of the expense.
Erecting and fixing... £210.
Inscription...£204.40.
Disbursement
to Hither Green Cemetery.....£59.00.
vat..£62.16
Total.... £535.56.
My main vent is this £59.00 payable to the local Council, we already payed once for the original grave, why again? maybe it goes towards the upkeep of the graves (which is not very good at all )

Fair question, that - interesting that it's more than 25% of the cost for getting the inscription done; does indeed seem excessive for an admin charge (if that's what it is), doesn't it?

Have you got in touch with the council to query it and request a breakdown of what the £59 comprises?

flybynight

i had a job delivering headstones to graveyards. the key thing being you can't drive your ruddy great truck through a graveyard over the grass. its also not conducive to using a fork lift / pallet truck. which meant it came down to moving stuff the old fashioned way. 2 people and a lot of shifting / huffing and puffing.

FluffyFiFi

Not wanting to provoke anymore heated exchanges but has anyone got an idea on how to have a small plate added to a grave. My Grandad died about 14 years ago and his ashes were put into the grave where my Grandmother was buried, along with their 42 year old son. The gravestone currently reads the names of my grandmother and uncle but nothing was ever added to cover my Grandad. My remaining uncle was going to arrange this but he is hasn't wanted to pay for this yet, so 14 years later and my mother is very upset about the whole thing but she can't afford to have anything done. I should also add that the grave is about 100 miles away from where we live so it is a problem getting there. I have said I would help her sort something out but don't know where to start. I've looked on the local council website but can't find any information relating to the graveyard and on reading this thread I am concerned that changing the headstone is beyond our means. Has anyone got any thoughts about what I can do, any advice would be much appreciated.

geordieracer

Try contacting co-op funeral services for a quote on this and then go to some independants for other quotes. Im not sure if they would have to remove the stone for just attaching an engraved plate but may have too.

you could always get a plate engraved by the same shops that do sports trophies and then just pay the cost of fixing it to the headstone - may reduce the cost somewhat