To not want to pay for grave right now?

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I'll try to give as much information as possible without drip feeding or outing myself. I don't think I'm BU and as it's sensitive I'm aware in real life I can't really ask without sounding crass/causing upset which I'm loathe to do.

My dear father passed away recently. He had a long term partner of 10 years although they lived separately through choice. They spent about 5 nights a week together in either home. She wants to be buried with him.

His partner very kindly agreed to split the cost of the funeral with me and my siblings - who didn't speak to him due to a messy divorce from mum. His DP now wants to put the headstone up. She has recently had a massive windfall (150k+) and wants top of the range, all singing and dancing gravestone and surrounds. She is not willing to compromise on this and wants me to split the cost. I am officially next of Kin and can categorically say that my siblings won't contribute.

I genuinely cannot afford this. We are a single income family and tbh I had to take out a bank loan to cover my portion of the funeral and all the associated costs. I would be willing to pay half of the grave etc. if it was a reasonable price but there is no room for compromise with her. We will have two incomes next year and I have said if she's willing to wait to the end of 2019 I would be happy to do it then. She wants it up now. I am also not willing to owe her the money. I have said to either do it alone now or wait to next year to I can afford it.

I'm very aware she thinks I'm being out of line by refusing to do it now and pay her back but a) I'm not willing to 'owe' her, b) I think the expense she wants is excessive and don't want to be throwing away unnecessary money, c) she is insisting on it being done so quickly as not to mess with her benefits.

Given that she paid £1000 for the funeral AIBU insisting she either does it now and pays it herself or waits to next Christmas if she wants to share the cost? My share of her grave will be more expensive than what I paid for the funeral. Happy to hear all opinions but please don't be too harsh!

With my cynical hat on....' She's kindly agreed..'..to contribute... to something that will directly benefit her... If she's sharing the stone /grave in the future ...

Also it does sound that she's wanting to get rid of capital now...

If she was acting in your dad's /your best interests she wouldn't be asking you to take on a loan (from her) that you neither want or can afford....

If she wants it she can pay for it....

I would not leave her in any doubt...

Dear rich dad's girlfriend,

As you know my share of dad's funeral was x. I willingly paid this although it is a struggle financially. You know I'm a single parent... I just can't afford to pay for share the headstone you're suggesting. I don't think dad would want me to go into debt either! Thanks for understanding. Love X.

Also... many places don't allow fancy gravestones so she may be thwarted that way...

I haven’t commented on the alleged benefits avoidance issue as I don’t know anything about it and I think it is kind of irrelevant to the OP’s position.

So are you saying the DP shouldn’t pay because the OP owns the grave...?
Could the OP perhaps transfer ownership now to the DP and tell her to do what she wants with it? Or does that depend on why her father gave the instructions to the OP and not to his DP?

I just think the DP is being a bit cheeky expecting the children of her deceased partner to pay, just because she never married their father. Sounds like they were committed in other respects if they lived together 5 days a week and want to be buried together. It would be understandable if the DP couldn’t afford any headstone, and in that case of course the children would be expected to step up and contribute, but this is not the situation: the DP has had a windfall.

I think you are being more than reasonable with what you've paid so far tbh. If it was me I'd just let her get on with it. Presume that if she wants to be buried there herself she's wanting a headstone large enough to include future engraving with her name on it? So she wants you to pay half of HER headstone too?!

Someone will need to pay for the upkeep of the grave in the future and it wouldn't be fair to expect op side of the family to do this is partner is buried there too.

Retirednow doesn't that usually get included when you buy the plot? I think it depends on whether it's a church yard or cemetery etc and I know some can have strict rules about the type of gravestones as well as things like flowers (especially synthetic) etc but I thought you bought the plot for a certain length of time which is part of the funeral costs at the time, with the stone being an addition? That also begs to question whether OP has already paid half of a "double plot"??

Ours is only for 99 years, who pays after that. I was wondering about the size too.

Is it not normal for a surviving spouse (or long-term partner) to cover ALL funeral and grave costs

It is normal for them to be paid for out of the estate, after that it would be the person who expects to inherit the estate if they chose to.

No-one is compelled to pay for a funeral - if people genuinely cannot afford it, the local authority will pay for a basic cremation, but not anything above the basics and probably not a burial, which is more expensive than a cremation. Of course other relatives may always volunteer to help with the cost, although they are not legally required to.

Ours is only for 99 years, who pays after that. I was wondering about the size too

After that, I expect that they will either want you (or more likely other surviving relatives) to pay to extend the lease or they will reuse the grave. A couple of years ago, DP and I watched a sad but fascinating programme about cemetaries in Athens.

Leases there are much shorter (only about 3 years!) and pre-crash, people had paid to have people buried in plots, but after the crash and when the leases were up for renewal, some of them could not afford to renew the lease, so the people who ran the cemetary were removing bodies from the graves and relocating them to communal graves so the plots could be resold to new 'occupants'. I think it was due to huge shortages in the number of available plots and perhaps Greek cultural/religious traditions that favoured burial over cremation.

I think they're reused too. I thought that if no relatives come forward when lease has expired they can relocate and sell the plot. I don't even know who my relatives were 100 years ago let alone where their graves are or if they were cremated. Not sure how I'd feel if someone suddenly sent me a bill for upkeep having said that there are loads of old falling down graves in the local church yard, they're not tended as such but someone mows the paths.

I thought you owned the grave plot piece of land, not the actual grave, if there's a difference and that they write to you every so many years asking if you want to extend the lease and then when the lease is up it becomes the property of the council.

Burial rights vary MASSIVELY between cemeteries.

The OP needs to look up the rules of where HER DAD is buried

and go from there

You say you were estranged from your Father, is anyone likely to get vindictive over her being buried there?

maybe they will but there isnt a lot they can do about once she is in

Sorry if this has already been asked but why did your siblings contribute to the funeral when they are estranged from him , and why wasn’t the money left in the estate just put towards the funeral ? As for the headstone YANBU , just tell her you can’t afford it at present and when you can it will be a simple headstone anyway , and then she can choose what she wishes to do .

Sorry for your loss OP. Losing a parent is the worst .....

However, I'm a bit confused. Did your dad not leave an estate of his own (his home, belongings etc)? Would the cost of the funeral expenses not be met out of that? Who is executor of his will? Did he make any provision for funeral expenses. Sorry for all the questions, but if your father was not married to this lady then you are his next of kin and would have some sort of final say in the whole matter of his burial arrangements and expenses. Only contribute what you/the estate can afford. Also, why is she on benefits of she's just received a "windfall" of £150k .... ?

Where I live whoever owns the grave gets documentation of this, but I guess everywhere is different.

TBH I don't think your DF's partner is being unreasonable to want a say in the headstone if she's going to be on it too someday. I also think that leaving your DF without a headstone for nearly 2 years isn't ideal if there are the means to get a stone in place before then.

I do however think that she is being ridiculous to expect you to fork out for half of a headstone that is entirely of her choosing, especially if it's top of the range. My DF's headstone was nearly £4000 and is relatively plain in shape and material so I can only imagine how expensive the one she has chosen will be!

I would be telling her if that's the one she wants, fine, but she's to foot the bill. Otherwise, you can choose a more appropriately priced headstone together that you both like!

for you, it's a sad enough time without all the extra grief you're getting!