Paying for funeral

[familydilema]

My mum died on Tuesday and I wondering if the bank or building society with her accounts can pay the funeral directors directly rather than the family paying and then getting the money back later once her estate has been settled. My sister has mainly been dealing with mums finances and is executor of her will

If the deceased has debts then their estate will be used before distributing to any beneficiaries.
The cost of a funeral is the ultimate death-related debt, so it is completely appropriate for the money to be used to pay.

Wills generally contain an instruction to Executors to settle "funeral costs" from the deceased estate and I'd expect a Will would specifically exclude flowers or other costs if the deceased felt so strongly

As

The Bank will pay the final bill from the Funeral Directors direct to them,not sure about Flowers or the wake,call into a branch with DC and ID.
When I arranged a funeral last year I had to pay a deposit of 2K so had to use my personal credit card ,reclaiming from the Estate at a later date.

You'll probably just have a funeral without flowers them. I would take that as you saying you didn't want them.

Why should someone else pay for your funeral if you have the money for it and are dead and therefore don't need it for anything else? You can hardly leave all your money to the local dog's home and expect a living relative to pay for your funeral with money they could use for living.

@Prawnofthedead Who said anything about expecting someone else to pay for my funeral?! 🤔

The only thing I would expect anyone else to pay for, is the flowers from THEM!

Apart from that I have no objections to my money funding my funeral. 😒

I see @Tarmaced point tbh. The funeral is a necessity but surely the flowers are that persons tribute to the person they love? Or want to buy flowers for? It seems a bit cheeky to then charge the deceased.

Exactly @Stomacharmeleon !

It's like buying flowers for someone's birthday then expecting them to reimburse you! 🫤

Btw what else can be paid from the deceased's bank account before the probate is through

I paid my father's inheritance tax bill from his (Natwest) account, before probate was awarded.

https://www.gov.uk/paying-inheritance-tax/deceaseds-bank-account

I think all this would need to be arranged by your sister who is executor of the will. She needs to be granted probate in order to have authority to make payments from your mum’s bank, and take control of her assets to settle expenses etc.

Please share this with your sister.

https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate

Once probate has been granted this should also allow your sister to tie up any loose ends with regard to the estate.

I am pretty sure the executor ( your sister) can use the money from your mum’s account to pay the funeral costs, it comes out of the estate.

Sorry the estate I was dealing with was insolvent. Deceased had about 20k in the bank but lots of debt. I was told that reasonable funeral expense was coffin/ cremation / service. No flowers/?wake / headstone.

In Scotland an Executor applies for Confirmation from the Sheriff Court for the area where the deceased last resided

When my parents died - 2 years apart, the executors (who were a legal firm acting on behalf of a High Street Bank ) told me that we had to pay for the wake but they'd settle the funeral bill. We didn't want to bother DM about the cost of the wake after DFs funeral so the 3 siblings just split the bill between us. Same when we had DMs wake. Ultimately we were reimbursed as we were beneficiaries of the will.

The executor can ask the bank to release the monies to pay the funeral bill. If the bank would require probate (usually depends on the amounts in the accounts individual banks have their own rules on the amount) before full monies are released from the account then you can still ask for them to settle the bill. As other posters said this is one of the reasons funds can be released before probate (if probate is needed) other reasons include paying IHT bill before probate. If there is an executor banks will prefer for them to apply for the funds as sometimes they can only take instruction from executors rather than family of the deceased as well.