is a contact legally binding if the personal details on it are incorrect?

Mojisola

SarahSK wrote: »

My uncle passes away a few weeks ago, as his only living relatives my brother and I have had to organise the funeral.

It's too late for you now but no-one has to organise and pay for a funeral.

The local authority or the hospital (depending on where the death occurred) will provide a simple funeral if no-one else is able or willing to pay.

There are also grants available if the funeral organiser is on certain benefits.

saker75

As a former Funeral Director I was always acutely aware of being explicit about such contractual arrangements. It's a profession that generally contracts with one party being under emotional stress or anxiety - and therefore needs particular care that they understand the consequences of such decisions.

That said, we were incredibly generous with allowing people to pay funerals off. We had one chap paying £3/wk - but he finally paid it off. We did have a few accounts go for formal debt collection but they tended to be extreme cases. We were also incredibly good about keeping costs low for those that were in genuine need.

Which is also probably why my colleagues and I didn't get paid very much and I moved on after only a few years.

Le_Kirk

Might not be too late, try this link: -
https://www.gov.uk/funeral-payments/overview
Worked for me when I had to arrange brother's funeral.

Undervalued

Mojisola wrote: »

It's too late for you now but no-one has to organise and pay for a funeral.

The local authority or the hospital (depending on where the death occurred) will provide a simple funeral if no-one else is able or willing to pay.

There are also grants available if the funeral organiser is on certain benefits.

Exactly.

Other than morally (maybe) you cannot inherit somebody's debts. If you choose to take on the responsibility of making funeral arrangements then you have the responsibility of paying for them.

By all means claim any grants that may be available but beyond that it is your choice.

It is quite wrong to make a commitment with any type of business then look for an obscure technicality to try and avoid paying.

SarahSK

I am not at all looking for a way to avoid paying, I have made it clear that i have every intention of paying.

I had no idea they payment would be due within 30 days, i was never told, clearly i was naive to assume that that would be flexible and willing to set up a reasonable payment plan.
i also had no idea you don't nave to make the arrangements, when the funeral directors contacted us we just assumed that we had no choice, we told them the situation and they told us the cheapest option was X amount, despite cutting down everything the bare minimum and not having anything other than the essentials it sill cost several thousand, i just thought as his only relatives it was our responsibility and we had no choice.

I think this thread was wrongly written, it should have been two separate threads really, one asking advice about paying for the funeral and another about the contract.
the contact issue was just a red herring really, i was upset when i wrote it and was just looking for any kind of solution and then i saw the issue with the contract and thought maybe that would give me a little leeway with the 30 day time time limit, clearly it was a stupid idea but i was and still am very worried about it.

getting a credit card or a loan really isn't an option unfortunately.

Thank you to those with useful advice.