Advise needed - Min age to buy a burial plot

farley95_2

Hi - 3 questions
What's the minimum age you can buy a burial plot 16 or 18yrs old?

If a baby is stillborn and the couple aren't married who is legal guardian of babys rights etc?

Should you get a birth & death certificate for the baby?

I know they sound awful questions but its a horrible situation we're in

amyloofoo

:grouphug: Didn't want to read and run, I'm very sorry for your loss.

I'm sure someone will be along with some specific advice about the age question for you soon, aren't the hospital able to help? It was my understanding that they would assist for stillbirths. From reading and experience of working in neonates, hospitals are able to arrange these things free of charge if that's something you'd like to happen.

Sands are a great organisation who help with the loss of little ones, and this is from their website: http://www.uk-sands.org/support/when/funerals.html - this is from the NHS http://www.nhs.uk/conditions/pregnancy-and-baby/pages/coping-with-stillbirth.aspx

In terms of registering the birth and death, all stillbirths over 24 weeks do need to be registered, your hospital should be able to advise you, but this needs to be done with the local council.

londonsurrey

It will probably be 18, as under that the person is still a minor, and you can't legally enforce any contracts with any degree of confidence with a minor. The guardian of the minor may act on the minor's behalf.

The birth certificate question depends on the age of the baby. Under a certain number of weeks, I believe that there is a problem with getting a birth certificate for it, and there is currently a campaign to change this.

thefishdude

over 24 weeks you will need birth and death certificates i believe. if couple arenot married then i believe father has no rights. i know when my son was born at 26+4 and was in neo nat i could not autharise any treatment the mother had to be contacted. ii could visit but that was it lol my son even had wrong name not mine as mother was still in hospital and so couldnt get to register birth and put me down on birth certificate so they automatically used her name wich we did not want. our son died 20 days later we had him burried funeral directors were very nice. we arranged it all ourselves allthough were given option of help from hospital but we wanted to choose were he was burried.

hope you can get as much help as you need through this hard time.

rachbc

If not married the parents will need to register the birth together if they want dad's name on the cert. This gives the father parental right. However I don't know if this inc rights in a say bout what happens re funerals etc

rockcake67

speaking from personal experience we dealt with the bereavement counseller at the hospital.she was fantastic and told us what our options were and will be able to answer all your questions.she arranged everything for us from photographs to the burial.I do know that a baby from 24 weeks has to be registered.my heart goes out to you and your family.

Mojisola

thefishdude wrote: »

if couple arenot married then i believe father has no rights.

i know when my son was born at 26+4 and was in neo nat i could not autharise any treatment the mother had to be contacted. ii could visit but that was it lol my son even had wrong name not mine as mother was still in hospital and so couldnt get to register birth and put me down on birth certificate so they automatically used her name wich we did not want.

If the parents are unmarried, the father has to be present to put his name on the birth certificate. If the parents are married, either can register the birth.

If the father's name is on the BC, the father has full parental rights.

Wyre

If the baby was born alive and died later, as in my case where the baby was 23+5 but died after 10 minutes, then you will have to get a birth certificate and both parents if unmarried will need to be there if the father wants to be on the birth certificate. Then a burial can be undertaken as normal.

Most funeral places have lovely staff that will be able to assist with any questions and I can totally recommend SANDS.

GobbledyGook

A stillbirth is registered slightly differently to a birth if the baby lives for even a short amount of time. (I only know this from doing family tree research, the still birth registry is not available to search like other records).

The hospital should be advising you as often stillbirths are registered in hospital, if not speak to someone like SANDS.

Here is the direct.gov link on registering a stillbirth. http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/governmentcitizensandrights/registeringlifeevents/birthandadoptionrecords/registeringorchangingabirthrecord/dg_175614

Mojisola

In addition to all the above, many funeral directors will offer a free or very cheap funeral for babies.

farley95_2

Thank you for all your replies - it's an odd case and one hopefully no-one else finds themselves in.
Basically in Feb my daughter lost her baby at 22wks through spontaneous miscarriage, she is 18. In hospital they were great and they arranged the funeral for us, a burial - we have no complaints there, brilliant job.

Its now 6mths later and we go to ask what we do next about the burial plot only to find the father who is 17yrs old and no job (so its his family) has brought the rights to the plot.

We wasnt given any birth or death cert but someone said to have a burial we should have had one. In hospital my daughter had to sign everything as it was her baby.

So we are a bit confused as to how this can happen without the mother being told and now has no rights to her own babies grave!
If the owner of the plot doesn't want your ornaments or flowers on it they can bin the lot etc
We were told by the women who sells the plots "anyone can buy it" ????
Haven't never had to go through this before I am horrified that this can be true.