Using estate funds to pay funeral

dave0788

I have power of attorney for my parents estate, both of whom are now in full time care. Can I take money to cover or pay in advance their funeral expenses before it is all used by the local authorities to pay for their care. 

Flugelhorn

I am not sure that you can do this under POA   however the LA do not take all of the money, they stop when savings reach a certain level (?23k) which would be more than enough 

AnotherJoe

As said, unless you are planning wildly extravagant funerals, the deductions stop well before the level at which there's no money to pay for a funeral. Best to read up on all that including what you can claim for, if you weren't aware of that maybe there are  areas you can claim for you didnt know about. AgeUK and Alzheimers society are good sources of help.

Savvy_Sue

I think buying a funeral plan is one of the things that is allowed, but AgeUK and Alzheimers will definitely know. 

w0nKy

I did exactly this when I was a deputy for my mother.
 I contacted the court of protection to check before I purchased it and also long before my mothers funds got to 23k. Doing it that way meant that although you will hit 23k sooner the funeral cost is covered and there is 23k for each of your parents and the funeral costs are already covered.
Hope this makes sense.

dave0788

w0nKy said:

I did exactly this when I was a deputy for my mother.
 I contacted the court of protection to check before I purchased it and also long before my mothers funds got to 23k. Doing it that way meant that although you will hit 23k sooner the funeral cost is covered and there is 23k for each of your parents and the funeral costs are already covered.
Hope this makes sense.

Yes it makes sense thank you. This is what I wanted to do, buy a funeral before the funds are reduced to 23k. I didn’t realise it’s 23k for each parent? I would of assumed if one parent passed  away the joint funds would still run down to 23k for the remaining parent?