Is this normal for an undertaker? My father had a funeral plan and pretty much everything was covered (or so I thought). SO I was somewhat surprised to get a chasing letter from Co op Funeral Services for non payment of fees. On investigation the local office told me that there were £140 of additional items my father had requested that weren't included in the plan and a fee of £50 for the crematorium switching on the electric organ so my husband could provide a bit of "till ready" background music as the minister was late due to bad traffic. I wasn't sent an invoice for any of this (still not had one....)
I explained that my father's estate has no liquid assets so I can't get cash from that until probate and that the joint bank account passed to my mother who has no capacity. I have an EPA for her following my father's death but that is still with the Public Guardian's Office for activation - taken them 3 months and counting. The banking arm of the Coop won't let me access funds for this without the activation code despite having a copy of the EPA - and I probably shouldn't pay the funeral expenses from my mother's account anyway as they are correctly estate expenses.
Co op funeral care said that none of this is their problem (including not having actually sent me an invoice) and that they are going to send debt collectors after me - is this how funeral directors usually act nowadays? My father took out an insurance plan with the Coop to avoid this sort of issue.