Some questions after my mums recent sudden death

YoungBlueEyes

I know it's awful and everything seems to need doing right now but I found that as long as you're doing one thing at a time you get through it. Making and keeping lists was invaluable to me, I'd often wake in the middle of the night, panicking that I hadn't rung x or y but the lists kept me straight

I also found when ringing various people (pensions/taxman/council etc) that people are especially nice when you tell them why you're calling. I don't know how many times I said "sorry. bear with me, my head's all over the place at the minute but I want to make sure I get this right". Every single person was very kind and never minded repeating themselves after I said that, no matter how many times I rang, and a couple of them I rang often!

A good tip, in case this helps anyone - have the person's date of birth and national insurance number written on the top of your pad when you ring. Everybody seemed to want this and it was so useful to have it to hand rather than searching for it every time.

Dox

SeriouslyStressedOut wrote: »

Now on to sorting out any pensions. I!!!8217;m dreading that task, but the sooner that!!!8217;s sorted the better.

Looking at your other post on pensions, in particular the dates when your mother was working, I think - as one of the answers on that thread has already pointed out - it is highly unlikely your mother has any pensions to trace. I hope that doesn't sound a soulless reply; it is trying to give you a bit of comfort that you won't be missing out on a crock of gold if you can't remember her previous employers. Even if she does have a pension somewhere, the amount will be tiny, so don't stress yourself further fretting about what will almost certainly be nothing or next to nothing.

SeriouslyStressedOut

Just thought I!!!8217;d update this, since reading previous threads it seems like people post and then never come back to update!

I sent the bill from the funeral director to the bank last week, along with a covering letter asking that the funeral bill be paid directly to the funeral director.

The bank sent a text to my dad today, to say that they!!!8217;d paid the bill and it would be received by the funeral director by 6pm tonight.

We!!!8217;ve not yet spoken to the funeral director to check it was received, however, I!!!8217;m sure it will have been.

I guess that the bank deemed the funeral expenses to be reasonable (we didn!!!8217;t ask for any of the wake/catering or flowers to be covered, just the basic funeral costs), which is good, and they were certainly very quick sorting it out for us.

Once we get our heads together, I will send a thank you note to their bereavement team as they did resolve this quickly and it was a huge worry for us.

Just in case anyone reads this in the future - our basic funeral expenses totalled a little over £2300. This included the plot, the grave to be dug, the coffin, the hymn sheets, transport of my mum from the hospital she had the post mortem (about 60 miles away) and for her to be kept in their chapel of rest. The fee also included the service (vicar, organist) and whatever fees had to be paid to the council etc.

We didn!!!8217;t have any cars, nor did we have anything extra. It was the most basic package and the funeral director was good enough to double up the hymn sheets when we discovered how many people would be attending, without any extra charge to us.

I!!!8217;ve also written a review for the funeral director, as they were honestly amazing.