Dying is expensive
Discussion
I had no idea looking after grandparents who have a bit of cash would be so expensive. Both now no longer with us but I’m left with a lot of admin and some big bills.
Won’t go into too much detail but
We needed a deputyship for over a year. Now have a bill for £9000
Probate bill still to come
Conveyancing bill still to come
Funeral £6000*2
CCG case to try to get back some of the £120k in care bills back £8000 due to some dodgy end of life assessments and contradictions
I had no idea it could be so expensive, all because they had a few quid in the bank. I very much suspect if they were skint all this would be free’ish. Is this normal?
Reason for the post: Need to get my own house in order before I die!
Won’t go into too much detail but
We needed a deputyship for over a year. Now have a bill for £9000
Probate bill still to come
Conveyancing bill still to come
Funeral £6000*2
CCG case to try to get back some of the £120k in care bills back £8000 due to some dodgy end of life assessments and contradictions
I had no idea it could be so expensive, all because they had a few quid in the bank. I very much suspect if they were skint all this would be free’ish. Is this normal?
Reason for the post: Need to get my own house in order before I die!
Edited by oldaudi on Tuesday 17th December 14:06
mikeiow said:
No idea what a deputyship is.....but a funeral at 6K sounds hefty, & that surely was in the hands of those surviving family members!
My thoughts too. If the OP was executor then he'd have decided how much got paid and to whom.I paid my bookeeper £300 to sort out Probate, no need to have a professional's snout hoovering cash out of the estate!
oldaudi said:
We needed a deputyship for over a year. Now have a bill for £9000
That alone is crazy money, is a solicitor taking you for a ride?If you did that yourself, fees and payments should be as follows:
https://www.gov.uk/become-deputy/fees
If there is two main events that are overpriced and marked up to the max it's weddings and funerals. It's usual because people are almost afraid to question the price of items, at wedding you have control but it's easy to get carried away.
Funerals on the other hand are were the mark ups really go crazy. I remember a relatives funeral about ten years ago it was about £4k in total. The distance from the funeral service to the cemetery was about a 1/4 mile away and they tired to charge £350 for a funeral car.
There is a reason why a funeral director in Leeds has about twenty Rolls-Royce Phantoms on the fleet.
Funerals on the other hand are were the mark ups really go crazy. I remember a relatives funeral about ten years ago it was about £4k in total. The distance from the funeral service to the cemetery was about a 1/4 mile away and they tired to charge £350 for a funeral car.
There is a reason why a funeral director in Leeds has about twenty Rolls-Royce Phantoms on the fleet.
Yep - when my father died we had to be rather firm with the undertaker. Yes, we do want the cheapest cardboard coffin. No, we don't think he was worth anymore than that as his request was for cheapest cremation possible. We did spend the 'savings' on an excellent curry buffet and open bar for his friends and family after the funeral - in comparison to the undertaker the hotel was genuinely helpful and pleasant to deal with - especially after we told them that curry (and a beer) was his favourite meal.
oldaudi said:
I had no idea looking after grandparents who have a bit of cash would be so expensive. Both now no longer with us but I’m left with a lot of admin and some big bills.
Won’t go into too much detail but
We needed a deputyship for over a year. Now have a bill for £9000
Probate bill still to come
Conveyancing bill still to come
Funeral £6000*2
CCG case to try to get back some of the £120k in care bills back £8000 due to some dodgy end of life assessments and contradictions
I had no idea it could be so expensive, all because they had a few quid in the bank. I very much suspect if they were skint all this would be free’ish. Is this normal?
Reason for the post: Need to get my own house in order before I die!
Why are you doing this and not parents?Won’t go into too much detail but
We needed a deputyship for over a year. Now have a bill for £9000
Probate bill still to come
Conveyancing bill still to come
Funeral £6000*2
CCG case to try to get back some of the £120k in care bills back £8000 due to some dodgy end of life assessments and contradictions
I had no idea it could be so expensive, all because they had a few quid in the bank. I very much suspect if they were skint all this would be free’ish. Is this normal?
Reason for the post: Need to get my own house in order before I die!
Edited by oldaudi on Tuesday 17th December 14:06
Will the grandparents be leaving some money, when all the bills are paid?
You don't HAVE to do anything. you can just shrug your shoulders and say "oh dear. How sad".
If you don't step in, the state will see to everything.
.
oldaudi said:
I had no idea looking after grandparents who have a bit of cash would be so expensive. Both now no longer with us but I’m left with a lot of admin and some big bills.
Won’t go into too much detail but
We needed a deputyship for over a year. Now have a bill for £9000
Probate bill still to come
Conveyancing bill still to come
Funeral £6000*2
CCG case to try to get back some of the £120k in care bills back £8000 due to some dodgy end of life assessments and contradictions
I had no idea it could be so expensive, all because they had a few quid in the bank. I very much suspect if they were skint all this would be free’ish. Is this normal?
Reason for the post: Need to get my own house in order before I die!
I'n afraid that's a bit like saying "I've just bought a Mercedes SL - who knew cars could be so expensive" Won’t go into too much detail but
We needed a deputyship for over a year. Now have a bill for £9000
Probate bill still to come
Conveyancing bill still to come
Funeral £6000*2
CCG case to try to get back some of the £120k in care bills back £8000 due to some dodgy end of life assessments and contradictions
I had no idea it could be so expensive, all because they had a few quid in the bank. I very much suspect if they were skint all this would be free’ish. Is this normal?
Reason for the post: Need to get my own house in order before I die!
Deputyship should have been hundreds rather than thousands (and arguable not related to the funeral)
Probate bill - why didn't they make a will?
Decent funeral achievable from £3k IMHO
Conveyancing = £500
CCG - not really connected to dying but if they were in care surely most, if not all, of the above should already have been planned for?
while a lot of the responses are true, I think it all comes down to the OPs last comment. If things are not planned in advance it can get expensive very quickly.
eg.
Deputyship. Was that £9k paying someone else to manage their affairs because short notice it was easier than getting a hard pressed relative to do it?
Funerals: Call a funeral directors at the last minute when you are emotional, have a dead body on your hands and just need to get things done and that extra £2000 just gets paid to avoid hassle. Especially if that money is ultimately coming from the deceases estate so is "free money".
I know this from doing 2 funerals recently. First my Aunt. She had a paid up funeral plan and I was emotional detacted enough to be able to sort things logically. I think the funeral cost about £2k including a wake for 100ish people. Second, my father. No planning but we did have about 3 months notice. However during that 3 months I found myself purely focussed on looking after him and it somehow felt wrong ringing round funeral directors while he was still alive. So when it happened it was the local (not cheap) directors that were called. Funeral was more like £6k.......
It also reminds me of a friend who died of cancer at about 45. He was in hospital and hospice care for about 6 months so the end was no surprise. But it turned out he still did not have a will. I think some sort of unconcious denial of what was going on and no-one felt able to push the subject. Caused quite a lot of problems as he was not married to his partner.
Bottom line is that analyising such things logically misses the point and that was not the reason for the post
eg.
Deputyship. Was that £9k paying someone else to manage their affairs because short notice it was easier than getting a hard pressed relative to do it?
Funerals: Call a funeral directors at the last minute when you are emotional, have a dead body on your hands and just need to get things done and that extra £2000 just gets paid to avoid hassle. Especially if that money is ultimately coming from the deceases estate so is "free money".
I know this from doing 2 funerals recently. First my Aunt. She had a paid up funeral plan and I was emotional detacted enough to be able to sort things logically. I think the funeral cost about £2k including a wake for 100ish people. Second, my father. No planning but we did have about 3 months notice. However during that 3 months I found myself purely focussed on looking after him and it somehow felt wrong ringing round funeral directors while he was still alive. So when it happened it was the local (not cheap) directors that were called. Funeral was more like £6k.......
It also reminds me of a friend who died of cancer at about 45. He was in hospital and hospice care for about 6 months so the end was no surprise. But it turned out he still did not have a will. I think some sort of unconcious denial of what was going on and no-one felt able to push the subject. Caused quite a lot of problems as he was not married to his partner.
Bottom line is that analyising such things logically misses the point and that was not the reason for the post
EarlofDrift said:
If there is two main events that are overpriced and marked up to the max it's weddings and funerals. It's usual because people are almost afraid to question the price of items, at wedding you have control but it's easy to get carried away.
Funerals on the other hand are were the mark ups really go crazy. I remember a relatives funeral about ten years ago it was about £4k in total. The distance from the funeral service to the cemetery was about a 1/4 mile away and they tired to charge £350 for a funeral car.
There is a reason why a funeral director in Leeds has about twenty Rolls-Royce Phantoms on the fleet.
To be fair, the distance doesn't make much difference - the car and people will still be tied up for a similar amount of time. Mostly it's going to be pretty difficult to do more than one funeral per day. Funeral Directors are going bust - many, even though they might seem like they're your little local undertaker, are part of big groups now.Funerals on the other hand are were the mark ups really go crazy. I remember a relatives funeral about ten years ago it was about £4k in total. The distance from the funeral service to the cemetery was about a 1/4 mile away and they tired to charge £350 for a funeral car.
There is a reason why a funeral director in Leeds has about twenty Rolls-Royce Phantoms on the fleet.
Having said that, it was a bit of an eye-opener comparing my mum and dads funeral costs, 10 years apart. Pretty well like for like, the same undertakers costs had doubled. All the other fees (doctor etc) had only increased slightly.
wisbech said:
Yep - when my father died we had to be rather firm with the undertaker. Yes, we do want the cheapest cardboard coffin. No, we don't think he was worth anymore than that as his request was for cheapest cremation possible. We did spend the 'savings' on an excellent curry buffet and open bar for his friends and family after the funeral - in comparison to the undertaker the hotel was genuinely helpful and pleasant to deal with - especially after we told them that curry (and a beer) was his favourite meal.
If your going the cremation route a cardboard coffin is fine. I worked with a guy that did a bit of landscaping at a local crematorium he told me that a few mornings he was there a black van would pull up and collect empty coffins at the back of the building. He ask why and was told they were being 'recycled'. So basically if you bought an expensive wooden coffin it didn't go in the furnace but was sent back to be reused.
EarlofDrift said:
If your going the cremation route a cardboard coffin is fine.
.
I like the spitfire one, might request one in my will maybe .
https://cardboardcoffincompany.com/shop/spitfire-c...
Cotty said:
I like the spitfire one, might request one in my will maybe
https://cardboardcoffincompany.com/shop/spitfire-c...
Still silly money, isn't it?https://cardboardcoffincompany.com/shop/spitfire-c...
£190 is still too much, in my book
https://cardboardcoffincompany.com/shop/manila-car...
Cotty said:
I like the spitfire one, might request one in my will maybe
https://cardboardcoffincompany.com/shop/spitfire-c...
A bomber would be better, surely? Be apt when the deceased drops out of the bottom. https://cardboardcoffincompany.com/shop/spitfire-c...
Don't unis and medical schools pay fifty quid for a corpse anymore? Bearing in mind they get to keep/sell any usable bits that would seem an "everyone's a winner" scenario.
And I doubt getting laughed at then chopped up by students then the bits sold or binned is any worse than being burned to ash or stuck in a hole for worms and bugs to eat. It's all one if you're deid, isn't it?
And I doubt getting laughed at then chopped up by students then the bits sold or binned is any worse than being burned to ash or stuck in a hole for worms and bugs to eat. It's all one if you're deid, isn't it?
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