MSE News: Families hit by soaring funeral costs

Former_MSE_Steve_1

Funeral costs have risen by an average of 5% but a postcode lottery for charges means bills for burial or cremation in some parts of the country have jumped by nearly a third...

Read the full story:
'Families hit by soaring funeral costs'

Click reply below to discuss. If you haven’t already, join the forum to reply. If you aren’t sure how it all works, read our New to Forum? Intro Guide.

Pincher

The whole concept of burial in a world with 7 billion people is just silly.

They need cadavers for medical students to practise on.

Organ donations. If you die from a stroke, your kidney etc. could still be good. If the NHS gets your organs, for free, they can pay for your cremation.

Probably not a good idea to feed pigs with the leftovers, BSE type diseases can build up in the food chain, but turning it into fertiliser must make the Green Party happy.

They really should do a re-make of the movie Soylent Green.

PasturesNew

Even the "bare minimum" without any service, flowers, cars etc is beyond a lot of people's ability to lay their hands on money at short notice.

It's not like a wedding, where you can buy a bit of paper and turn up in your jeans and be "sign here/job done" for thruppence.

I think just the act of burning/cremation is £800.... and you still need to get the body there and have it in a box etc.

But nothing will change while Councils need cash cows - and they have a desperate and trapped captive audience.

Yorkshireman99

PasturesNew wrote: »

Even the "bare minimum" without any service, flowers, cars etc is beyond a lot of people's ability to lay their hands on money at short notice.

It's not like a wedding, where you can buy a bit of paper and turn up in your jeans and be "sign here/job done" for thruppence.

I think just the act of burning/cremation is £800.... and you still need to get the body there and have it in a box etc.

But nothing will change while Councils need cash cows - and they have a desperate and trapped captive audience.

What many people don't realise is that if the estate has no funds relatives have no legal obligation to pay. The hospital where they died or the local authority is legally oblged to arange and pay for a basic funeral usually with cremation. Nobody need to get into debt to bury a relative.

ivyleaf

Matthew Wright mentioned on his show yesterday that someone he knew of who had died was having a Public Health Funeral, i.e. paid for by the local authority because none of his family could afford to pay for a funeral, and they were having to wait for three months before it could take place

Yorkshireman99

ivyleaf wrote: »

Matthew Wright mentioned on his show yesterday that someone he knew of who had died was having a Public Health Funeral, i.e. paid for by the local authority because none of his family could afford to pay for a funeral, and they were having to wait for three months before it could take place

Very unusual for any funeral to take that long. Without knowing the details it is impossible to know why there was such a delay. Locally capacity at the crematoriums means some delays. People don't die at a steady rate.

carlislelass

We've just been to a Service of Thanksgiving four days after a Direct Cremation,cost £1040.