Care Home used Dads money to buy flowers for themselves

Ladywriter1968

I hope I put this in the correct section.

Recently my Father passed away and I explained in previous post that the local authority were holding dads money as I applied for probate.

I asked for a break down of the funeral bill. I feel the care home have taken advantage to be honest.

They offered to arrange the funeral as I had no transport to get to places and live out of area. The local authority send the bill to the funeral directors after care home arranged this.

The care home ordered an extra car costing £195 to take 3 staff to the cremetorium. Plus I found out on top the flowers they got for Dad came out of Dads money costing £275. When the care home said to me, look what we bought your Dad, as if coming from them on day of funeral.

I have been advised by some one, a friend of a friend who works in the legal department that the money they used from Dads account for the flowers is classed as theft. And they should have consulted with me on the 3rd car and the flowers. I feel I have been taken advantage on while I was also grieving of loss of my Father, thinking these people were genuine to just try and help out. But now feel they did it for their own benefits.

The friend advised me to go to CAB and find out when their solicitors day is and they said the solicitor would send a letter to care home and demand they pay back the money from Dads account for the flowers and if they refuse they can be issued with a county court judgement.

Now in reflect that solicitors are expensive as well and we cant afford them, our only option is the CAB.

I realise now that I should have arranged the funeral even if meant getting cabs everywhere and borrowing money to do this, but its my mistake to have trusted.

What do you think about this?

Any other advice?

Crabapple

I agree, it's taking advantage of the situation. They shouldn't have arranged extras at a cost to the estate. That's a lot of money for flowers as well, a small arrangement from the home would have been reasonable and could have been bought for less than £100.

Are you sure those flowers did not include the coffin spray etc? Just thinking that it might be more flowers than just what they showed you and suggested was from them.

I would speak to the CAB but it might be worth you writing a letter yourself as a first step, telling them that you have seen that they ordered a car for staff and spent a lot of money on flowers which you consider was outside their remit in organising things.

The difficulty you have is that you agreed to them making arrangements, but obviously you did not expect them to include additional costs that have only benefitted themselves - in a normal situation they would have been invited to the funeral but there would certainly be no car for staff.

peachyprice

£275 is an awful lot of flowers, it's something huge like his name, not just an arrangement, are you sure it wasn't all the flowers like the coffin spray etc.? What did they show you was from them?

Ladywriter1968

peachyprice wrote: »

£275 is an awful lot of flowers, it's something huge like his name, not just an arrangement, are you sure it wasn't all the flowers like the coffin spray etc.? What did they show you was from them?

Yes it was huge lettering with his name put in flowers and then a smaller bunch on top.

My point is, they used Dads money to pay for his own flowers from care staff. The rest of the family made their own way to the cremetorium and bought their own flowers. I was not told about the 3rd car, it just showed up on the day to take the care home staff there. I guess they thought I would be to upset to think or investigate or to bother. Its like they took Dads money and used it like monopoly money.

Ladywriter1968

peachyprice wrote: »

£275 is an awful lot of flowers, it's something huge like his name, not just an arrangement, are you sure it wasn't all the flowers like the coffin spray etc.? What did they show you was from them?

The flowers with his name spelt in flowers which would have been expensive and another small bunch. But I didnt know until I asked the funeral director for a breakdown of the bill that the care home took it from Dads money, they said, look what we bought your dad. I found this out yesterday, the funeral was about a week ago. The funeral director gave me a breakdown of the bill yesterday.

timbo58

I don't think it was 'reasonable' for the care home to use the estates money to pay for a car, the flowers they could possibly argue were agreed by you, but the cars hire was unreasonable IMHO.

Thats what the argument should be : what the normal person unconnected to this dispute would see as 'reasonable or not' , send them a letter asking to be reimbursed for the use of the car and including a copy of the breakdown from the funeral directors, point out you also thought the purchase of flowers they stated they had bought themselves was also unfair.

See what they say.
If they don't refund at least the car, you'll be looking at a small claim action.

Errata

Not only were the car and the flowers unreasonable, they were also unecessary. Write asking for dad's estate to be reimbursed for those costs and if they refuse send a letter before action, they have no proof that you asked for the car and flowers.

G6JNS

Ladywriter1968 wrote: »

I hope I put this in the correct section.

Recently my Father passed away and I explained in previous post that the local authority were holding dads money as I applied for probate.

I asked for a break down of the funeral bill. I feel the care home have taken advantage to be honest.

They offered to arrange the funeral as I had no transport to get to places and live out of area. The local authority send the bill to the funeral directors after care home arranged this.

The care home ordered an extra car costing £195 to take 3 staff to the cremetorium. Plus I found out on top the flowers they got for Dad came out of Dads money costing £275. When the care home said to me, look what we bought your Dad, as if coming from them on day of funeral.

I have been advised by some one, a friend of a friend who works in the legal department that the money they used from Dads account for the flowers is classed as theft. And they should have consulted with me on the 3rd car and the flowers. I feel I have been taken advantage on while I was also grieving of loss of my Father, thinking these people were genuine to just try and help out. But now feel they did it for their own benefits.

The friend advised me to go to CAB and find out when their solicitors day is and they said the solicitor would send a letter to care home and demand they pay back the money from Dads account for the flowers and if they refuse they can be issued with a county court judgement.

Now in reflect that solicitors are expensive as well and we cant afford them, our only option is the CAB.

I realise now that I should have arranged the funeral even if meant getting cabs everywhere and borrowing money to do this, but its my mistake to have trusted.

What do you think about this?

Any other advice?

Go to the CAB and ask them to take it up. The care home did not have authority to spend the money in that way.

peachyprice

Did you tell them you didn't want any flowers when you agreed they would arrange the funeral for you?

It's not at all unusual for a name in flowers and as they were arranging the funeral on your behalf it's not unreasonable that they arranged that, to be paid from the estate, but they shouldn't have told you they were from the home, they should have said that this is what they had arranged for you.

The cars however are ridiculous and a bloomin cheek, they're not family, they should have made their own way there.

Errata

A coffin spray would have been proper, acceptable and sufficient.

Mojisola

Errata wrote: »

A coffin spray would have been proper, acceptable and sufficient.

This ^

Ladywriter - The home should either have agreed a maximum spend on the flowers or got a quote and contacted you for your permission.

Booking an extra car for staff was just taking the mickey.

Several of the care home residents and staff came to my Dad's funeral and I offered to pay for a couple of taxis for them but the manager refused to take anything.

For Mum and Dad, we had lovely coffin sprays that stretched the length of the coffins and they were half the price that you were charged.