How to word in my will that I don't want estranged parent at my funeral?

[sarah010179]

with the new year approaching, I'm getting my financial affairs and paperwork in order. One of the things will be to write a will.
I have an outline of my wishes and one of the most important things to me is that an estranged (very toxic) parents does not attend my funeral or graveside. How do I word this in a professional but clear sounding way? Unfortunately, I have no faith that my other parent would respect this wish (they have form for going against my wishes on serious matters), so I want it written in some kind of official, unambiguous way that the estranged parent doesn't attend and gets asked to leave/removed if they show up. Ideas?

But lots of people have requests for when they have died. The songs, the service. Once dead of course you don't know but surely respecting someone's wishes is still a thing?

I'm a little confused. If one parent 'has form' for going against your wishes and may likely invite estranged parent, just how 'estranged' is that parent?

If your siblings would not this either than I would also add this info to the funeral director and tell your siblings you have asked funeral director this

@MoralOrLegal
Theres a National Will Register

You can register your will with them online or if you’re using a solicitor you can ask them to do it.
So it can always be found.

Not if it doesn't exist or wasn't voluntarily registered like this!

The easiest way to do this is not to inform many people about your death until after the funeral. Would it upset your siblings and their families if they are not told about your death? I know someone who did this and it was hurtful for the family left behind.

I'm sorry, OP, but what you have there is not one shitty parent, but two shitty parents.

Perhaps you should consider the idea that neither of them should be informed about funeral arrangements.

Otherwise, I might consider a backstop arrangement whereby, if they attend, one of your friends stands up at some point in the service to read out a statement about the fact that you specifically didn't want them there, and why. Make everyone look at them and know what they've done. I do appreciate that the funeral should be a celebration of your life, though, and you would not want to focus on them. However, even the threat of this (perhaps together with a copy of the statement to be read out) might deter them from attending.

Or indeed if the will is overseas, as my dad's was!

Presumably OP means during the interment.

Well obviously
Its up to an individual to decide to register their own will. I’m assuming that’s why @MoralOrLegal was asking.

So it can be found if you don’t want to run the risk of no one knowing your wishes.

Thanks, I just thought it was a good place to ask. Thinking back, my dad didn't send me a copy of his will, it was with his papers; but as that bundle of paperwork was seriously incomplete, I might have been in that situation. (Which might have made things easier in some ways but that's another story and too much of a tangent!)

The role of executors is not to prohibit people attending a funeral, it is to distribute your estate in accordance with your wishes.

OP, I think if you're looking for some way to give your parent a final "fuck you", there are probably far more effective and certain ways to achieve that than trying to control attendance at your funeral.

You could have a letter read out about/to them at your will reading, arrange to have something sent to them (or published if that's what you want) explaining your feelings and so on.

But trying to control the funeral itself sounds like a waste of your energy as it will depend on the people who survive you carrying out your wishes. This would require being able to control the relationships that other people have with this person, and these obviously aren't something within your control.

From a practical perspective, whether intended or not, you'd be potentially engineering a big argument during your funeral, which seems like quite an odd legacy to want to leave your actual loved ones.

Ah - apparently this is because the body is not part of the estate.

No, it wasn't your point exactly. You said in another post "Your will is not going to be read before your funeral. There is a legal process which can take months before the will becomes available to the executor."

This is not the same as "The executor should have immediate access. If the executor was a solicitor, then you have no legal right to see the will until it’s gone through probate."

You’re right - you would have to be a twat, which is more than likely if the deceased didn't want you there in the first place.
Sadly, most ordinary people cannot afford to pay for private security for their funeral. If someone did ‘Chuck you out on your arse’, that would have been a criminal assault.

Agree with this

At a recent family funeral those who weren’t invited didn’t know where the burial was, made it simple

My husband doesn't want his son and DIL to come to his funeral. We haven't heard from them for years and then it was just online abuse. He's planning a direct cremation and a celebration of life afterwards in a venue that has the facilities to ban people from entering. It's the only way to control the situation. As I'm much younger, he doesn't want me to have them causing a scene and stress to me.

My sentiments exactly @theeyeofdoe .

I have written down my wishes for my body after my death 1) I am going to university to be used as a cadaver for medical,students. (Well at least it can be said I went to university, which is something I didn’t achieve in life).
2) if my body isn’t wanted by my chosen University at that particular time, a non attended cremation and then a private meet up, remembrance event organised by my daughter if she’s wishes.

Might not be what you want but a direct cremation and private life celebration would solve this.

Presumably you weren't named executors?

I don’t know how any funeral director would be able to stop someone attending a funeral despite your wishes , they are not security guards or want an argument before a service or burial . Maybe you would have to hire someone from a securety background to police this and prevent any distress at your funeral.

Wishes in a document attached to a will are just that. Wishes. The executor just has to consider them but they don’t have to abide by them. Maybe tell your executor or whoever’s arranging your funeral you don’t want xyz at your funeral because of abc