Grave Robbery (literally!)

dizzie

bod1467 wrote: »

I've said that the medical sciences can have any part of me they wish. (After I die - might be a bit painful beforehand).

Anything left over I want to be cremated, with the track Highway To Hell playing in the background.

I don't care what then happens to the ashes.

Am I unusual?

No, I don't think you're unusual. I'm not at all concerned about what they do with me when I'm dead. But even though I feel that way, I think that respecting other people's sentiments on the matter and trying to honour their wishes is pretty important to a grieving family....after all, it's the last act that you do for them.

Lets_say

Our family have just come up against this. Undertakers supplied all info to cemetery and were quoted £747 for the burial in plot owned by the deceased.
Family got a call from apologetic undertaker today advising cemetery just realised deceased lived some two miles outside council boundary so charge is doubled plus £50. Having just checked council bands, the deceased actually paid more in their area, so that's a poor excuse.

We are assuming the cemetery won't be receptive to us sending another family member along with his JCB....

ThumbRemote

Lets_say wrote: »

Our family have just come up against this. Undertakers supplied all info to cemetery and were quoted £747 for the burial in plot owned by the deceased.
Family got a call from apologetic undertaker today advising cemetery just realised deceased lived some two miles outside council boundary so charge is doubled plus £50. Having just checked council bands, the deceased actually paid more in their area, so that's a poor excuse.

We are assuming the cemetery won't be receptive to us sending another family member along with his JCB....

The cost doesn't just cover the burial. It has to cover the ongoing maintenance of the cemetery.

Let's say you want access for the next 20 years, that £1544 works out at only £77 per year - not a bad rate. If its 100 years you're paying a paltry £15 a year.

Shelldean

Graves are an easy way for the council to make some money.
OH Nan has died and had a prepaid funeral plan. On this plan she'd marked the grave plot. I called to double check she'd put the correct one, only to discover only the owner could open the grave.
And the owner was her son, who predeceased her.


Cue all the red tape the council could find.
had to get M-I-L to renounce her rights to the grave, as she was next of kin of the registered owner. Also had to get OH 2 sister to renounce their rights. Then and only then could the gave be owned by OH, oh and we had to pay £86 for privilege.




costing £1300 to open the grave.


And although Nan had pre paid, she'd only paid for a basic funeral plus £500 towards disbursements. We're basically paying the same again as her funeral plan

stardoman

I think the whole funeral business is a big scam. They know people don't like talking about death so can charge what they want as people are not going to complain.

Lets_say

ThumbRemote wrote: »

The cost doesn't just cover the burial. It has to cover the ongoing maintenance of the cemetery.

Let's say you want access for the next 20 years, that £1544 works out at only £77 per year - not a bad rate. If its 100 years you're paying a paltry £15 a year.

Perfectly reasonable explanation. But why should a postcode lottery mean you pay twice as much as someone else?

Nile

stardoman wrote: »

I think the whole funeral business is a big scam. They know people don't like talking about death so can charge what they want as people are not going to complain.

Yes, they hold the family to ransom at a time when they are least able to cope with a battle over costs.


What a pity that we don't have an equivalent to Easyjet, a funeral company offering people a budget/low cost option for burial.

Bantex_2

The deceased is not going to know or care where they are buried when the time comes.

It is only the living that will give a toss.

bargainbetty

Funeral plans do not always cover burial costs, because these are variable due to location and residential status. If you choose to be buried in a certain place, then you pay a price for it to the local authority who will then maintain the cemetery (and your plot) and resident v non-resident seems a fairly sensible method of deciding who pays what. There will always be exceptions, but they don't have to change to suit the individual. My family get cremated and scattered in the local memorial gardens because we recognise that it's essentially a reverential form of garbage disposal once the living soul has gone.

Elsewhere

I live in a small village in Dorset and our cemetary/parish council has had this policy for many years - I think it started to discourage holidaymakers from buying up the grave plots and leaving no room for local people. (If you think this unlikely, you have only to look at the number of wooden benches etc dotted around beauty spots with an inscription in memory of someone who was obviously a tourist.) BTW, finding new land to extend cemetaries in places convenient to towns (ie., not woodland sites) can be difficult.

Of course, this does catch out locals who have had to move away in later life for reasons such as health, but at their discretion the council will charge the local fee - I was on the council for some years and know they were very accomodating for genuine cases.

In a village where families know each other I suppose it is fairly easy to make such decisions, but it might still be worth writing to the council, or the local councillor for the ward they lived in, or their clergyman if they had been regular churchgoers to see if an exception can be made.