Should I ask for funeral payment back?

[Andrea18]

My son, a widower passed a few weeks ago, leaving only his daughter as his sole survivor.

As she did not have much money I offered to pay for the funeral and did so.

Then my granddaughter discovered a savings account with nearly £9000 in it.

She has managed to get the savings amount transferred to herself so now has over £9000 more than she had before.

Should I ask her for the money for the funeral back as I only offered to pay for my son's funeral because she believed she didn't have the money?

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If there was no will send her a letter with a copy of the invoice asking for payment, if she refuses or doesn't respond take her to the small claims court.

op isn't coming back

Nope. My mum's funeral could not go ahead without full payment, there was no life insurance, the bank paid it, by cheque.

Not if your full estate has £9k, you don't have any inheritance tax to pay.

Regardless of the tax position, funeral costs are usually paid from estates in priority to inheritance distributions and almost all debts.

The estate is legally obligated to pay for the funeral costs except in rare situations such as insolvency.

Totally agree.Four funerals over the last few years, the only one that was paid before the funeral was the one that was a prepaid funeral plan, not one of the others asked for a single penny beforehand, nor did they ask for payment immediately afterwards, that’s simply not how good funeral directors work

Unanswerable question. Do you have a lot of money - yes, pay for it. Is the daughter a child who has lost her father's support and you will now take her in - why would you take her only money from her? Are you so broke you are living on beans on toast because you paid for the funeral - ask for the cash.

Maybe it is different when it is a large organisation.
The undertakers we use have buried four generations of our family, so the relationship is completely different. We've been very lucky, they are wonderful.

I'm very sorry for your loss.

I didn't say they weren't.

It’s possible as it’s such a small sum so no probate needed. Some banks will pay out on sight of a death certificate. We often receive payments in excess of £100k from banks when we send the death certificate to them. Money could be there in under a week.

They all have different requirements when it comes to probate.

Sorry for your loss, OP. It must be awful burying a child. I’m going to go against the grain and say that I would view paying for my child’s funeral as the last thing I was able to do for them as their mother. There is no way I’d be asking my grandchild to pay me back

The funeral director told us it's standard practice to send the invoice, we take it to the decreased person's bank and they pay the funeral costs. Pay after the funeral (which in our case is happening this week).

My cousin who is a solicitor and does this all the time says that's normal but some funeral directors now ask for a deposit before the funeral.

Could you split it?

No it’s quite normal to pay up front before you receive their services…..

We don't know in this case if inheritance tax is due, a lot of older people are property rich and cash poor

I didn't comment on whether it was due in this case. I said "if".

I did too

Who the f would take their Grandchild to court over a funeral Bill. That will do wonders for family harmony.

Presumably the Grandchild was also the late wife's daughter, who has now just lost her Dad too?

So who is Op thinking will be picking her nursing home?

Your son was a widower, so presumably your granddaughter has lost both parents?
I can’t imagine taking money from a young girl in that position. If you can’t pay for your on sons funeral without quibbling perhaps you shouldn’t have volunteered to do so in the first place - poor kid.

You don't know that this is a young girl or a kid. If she's old enough to have sorted out the business with the savings account she has to be an adult. None of that takes away the fact that she has now lost both parents, but bear in mind that the OP (who hasn't been back and probably won't be, given a lot of these responses) has lost a son. As I've said and others have said, we don't know anything about the relative finances of grandmother and granddaughter.

And yet so many others on this thread have indeed had to pay up front. Did they all go to bad funeral directors, or is it possible that it's different from business to business?

No it isn't I've just paid for my mother's funeral. There's no way to book a funeral without paying!

It certainly sounds like it’s different depending where you are, just grateful we had an independent funeral director who put the money a distant second to good service

It might be down to the local crematorium's policy.

Not all people sit at their computer all day.

I was going to give more information but since more than half of the posters are disbelieving I don't think I'll bother.

Goodbye