Funeral "expenses"

Hercules_Grytpype-Thynne

Owing to my wife's disability, I have had to take over the funeral of her mother..................post funeral I have discovered that the local council want £65 to change the ownership of the "lease" from my now deceased Mother in Law to me & my wife AND THEN a further £125 for permission (!!) to add letters to the gravestone (double grave, with Father in Law).

BUT it gets worse. Because we no longer live in the same town as her the council want DOUBLE of both those charges. That is £380 just to basically just add letters**. I think that is obscene and grossly unfair.

Comments please? Anyone else experienced this rip-off?

**With the cost of the letters we are looking at just over £800! My God! I would have thought that expensive for a whole new headstone!!

Yorkshireman99

Hercules_Grytpype-Thynne wrote: »

Owing to my wife's disability, I have had to take over the funeral of her mother..................post funeral I have discovered that the local council want £65 to change the ownership of the "lease" from my now deceased Mother in Law to me & my wife AND THEN a further £125 for permission (!!) to add letters to the gravestone (double grave, with Father in Law).

BUT it gets worse. Because we no longer live in the same town as her the council want DOUBLE of both those charges. That is £380 just to basically just add letters**. I think that is obscene and grossly unfair.

Comments please? Anyone else experienced this rip-off?

**With the cost of the letters we are looking at just over £800! My God! I would have thought that expensive for a whole new headstone!!

It is quite common practice for councils to charge more for non resisents in these circumstances..

Tom99

[FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]A relative of mine lived with their partner but wrongly claimed single person council tax because the partner owned another house elsewhere.

[/FONT] [FONT=Verdana, sans-serif]When my relative died the local council charged their partner more for the plot because they were not a local resident.[/FONT]

SevenOfNine

Yes, as YM99 says "common practice".

Our LA charges £90.50 to transfer the grant of exclusive rights to burial. You will not be able to put MiL in with FiL without coughing up - as a deceased person she is no longer able to give permission for the gravesite to be opened. Ridiculous or what!

Additional inscriptions on existing stonework here cost £100.42.

You've forgotten to mention (or yet to discover) there is also a charge to reopen the grave for her interment, here it is £321.50 (I'm assuming you're talking about ashes).

Yes, to non-residents twice as much. Were there no other family/close friends locally who would have taken on the burial rights?

You'd think that once the burial rights had been purchased that would/should be it, sadly it's like a blinking shopping list of additional charges. TBH when my Aunt's ashes had been buried several years we decided to replace her memorial tablet, so we did - at dusk, LA didn't notice. Some years later we added some of the ashes of her sister to the grave & changed the tablet again so both had their info on, again - at dusk. Another 6 years have passed & LA still haven't noticed. (If they ever do I'll deny all knowledge.)

Did your wife, with possible disability benefits, check if she qualified for the funeral grant of £2k. Won't go far but better than nothing.

I agree, obscene & unfair, but sadly not unique I think all LA's probably charge left, right & centre.

Hercules_Grytpype-Thynne

SevenOfNine wrote: »

Yes, as YM99 says "common practice".

Our LA charges £90.50 to transfer the grant of exclusive rights to burial. You will not be able to put MiL in with FiL without coughing up - as a deceased person she is no longer able to give permission for the gravesite to be opened. Ridiculous or what!

Additional inscriptions on existing stonework here cost £100.42.

You've forgotten to mention (or yet to discover) there is also a charge to reopen the grave for her interment, here it is £321.50 (I'm assuming you're talking about ashes).

Yes, to non-residents twice as much. Were there no other family/close friends locally who would have taken on the burial rights?

You'd think that once the burial rights had been purchased that would/should be it, sadly it's like a blinking shopping list of additional charges. TBH when my Aunt's ashes had been buried several years we decided to replace her memorial tablet, so we did - at dusk, LA didn't notice. Some years later we added some of the ashes of her sister to the grave & changed the tablet again so both had their info on, again - at dusk. Another 6 years have passed & LA still haven't noticed. (If they ever do I'll deny all knowledge.)

Did your wife, with possible disability benefits, check if she qualified for the funeral grant of £2k. Won't go far but better than nothing.

I agree, obscene & unfair, but sadly not unique I think all LA's probably charge left, right & centre.

No, this is way past the burial back in May last year. For various reasons (!?) it is only now the subject of the headstone has come up. YES, horrendous charges, but I won’t go into ALL that!


The family as a whole wanted quite a bit of extra lettering at £3.45 per letter so that’s where that charge mounted up, and although I am not entirely happy with that of course, it is the clearly arbitrary charges made by the local council. I know, I know, but what bleedin’ difference does it make that we don’t live in that town anymore – NOTHING. Daylight robbery.


As I think I explained in my original post, you cannot do all these changes to the stone etc. without being the person with the Grant of Probate, which the two local grandchildren didn’t have.


I like your style! Spooky and so glad you got away with it. No wonder you put “your LA” (initially thought it was strange that you were talking in sterling, living in Los Angeles ) to keep your anonymity.


Yes, thank you I will look into the disability thing, but fear too much water has gone under the bridge.