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Law pertaining to Funerals and Disposal of a Body (UK)

I'm struggling to find information about legal responsibilities (or their lack) as they might apply to the adult child of a deceased parent. For the sake of argument, a parent dies but their adult child, or children, decline any responsibility to arrange a funeral or to cover its costs (assuming the deceased died without any assets or cover). If this happens, does the responsibility for a funeral and disposal fall on the government or local authority? Does anyone know what statutes or regulations cover these kinds of circumstance? Is there pertinent case-law?
Original post by Axiomasher
I'm struggling to find information about legal responsibilities (or their lack) as they might apply to the adult child of a deceased parent. For the sake of argument, a parent dies but their adult child, or children, decline any responsibility to arrange a funeral or to cover its costs (assuming the deceased died without any assets or cover). If this happens, does the responsibility for a funeral and disposal fall on the government or local authority? Does anyone know what statutes or regulations cover these kinds of circumstance? Is there pertinent case-law?


Am not available to look this one up.
My understanding the last time I looked was if hey die in hospital then the hospital offer the option of them disposing of the body.
Anywhere else then its the LA. Maybe try envrion health.
The benefits agency have a small grant you cant get for funerals.

Not sure why you would need case law?
Pursuant to s 46 of the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984, the local authority has a statutory responsibility to dispose of dead bodies if no one else is going to do so. The LA's statutory right to recovery is only against the deceased's estate, not against someone who had a "moral responsibility" towards the deceased (such as a child).

There is some very old case law to the effect that (i) a husband is responsible for burying a wife; and (ii) a parent is responsible for burying a child so that if the LA pays for a burial under s. 46 of the 1984 Act, it might have a right to restitution at common law against those individuals (see e.g., Goff & Jones on the Law of Restitution, at 18-67). For what it's worth I rather doubt that they are right, vis-a-vis husbands paying for wives, as it seems to me the obligation only existed because, prior to 1883, wives could not own their own property (Married Women's Property Act 1882), which belonged in law to their husband. The question was left open in Rees v Hughes [1946] KB 517.

I do not know of any authority that says a child was under an obligation to pay for the burial of a parent, even in the old common law cases.

If there is a relative of the deceased who wants to make funeral arrangements but cannot afford to do so, funds may be available under the Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) Regulations 2005 (which seem to me to be a slightly eccentric pair of subjects to mix)

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