Looking for advice/information on laws around engraving headstones?

StoryBuuud

Hi! My father passed away in 2014 and my mother paid for a headstone to be laid and engraved on his grave, as well as for the plot in the cemetery. My mother passed away last summer and she was buried in the same grave. Myself and my brother felt it was right to wait 6 months to a year to have my mom's information engraved on the headstone.

I also have a recording of my mom telling me what she wanted on the headstone after she died.

In October, I met my uncle and he told me that he would sort out the grave for me and my brother, such as cementing over the dirt where my mom was buried and restoring the grave itself to the way it was. However, I told him that I did not want him to engrave the headstone as my mother had told me what she wanted on it and that I wanted to sort it myself. He said okay.

In early December, I visited the grave and saw that my uncle had the headstone engraved without informing me or my brother. Along with the headstone not saying what my mom wanted it to say, it also misspells her name.

Myself and my brother have contacted my uncle to find out why he did it, but he just got angry and told us to **** off. We have also contacted the memorials company who engraved the headstone for my uncle and asked them why they did not try to contact us to make sure he had the authority to engrave the headstone. They are trying to cover their backs and have said they do not always seek verifying information.

We want the headstone fixed but have been told this will be quite costly. In a legal sense, is it my uncle or the memorial company who have to fix the mistake? It's quite a tough situation to be dealing with.

Big Bag of Chips

Realistically, if you want it changed you will probably be the ones to pay for it. The memorial company are not really liable. They did the job they were asked to do. They weren't to know your uncle wasn't authorised. Why would they question that? I doubt people are generally in the habit of paying for engraving on graves that are nothing to do with them.

You could talk to your uncle about splitting the cost of the repair. The memorial company might even offer a portion of the cost as a gesture of good will but they certainly would not be liable. They were asked, and paid to do a job, which they did.

It might be worth trying to approach your uncle again. Is he your mam's brother? He's also grieving so something to bear in mind if he's acting out of character.

StoryBuuud

Big Bag of Chips wrote: »

Realistically, if you want it changed you will probably be the ones to pay for it. The memorial company are not really liable. They did the job they were asked to do. They weren't to know your uncle wasn't authorised. Why would they question that? I doubt people are generally in the habit of paying for engraving on graves that are nothing to do with them.

You could talk to your uncle about splitting the cost of the repair. The memorial company might even offer a portion of the cost as a gesture of good will but they certainly would not be liable. They were asked, and paid to do a job, which they did.

It might be worth trying to approach your uncle again. Is he your mam's brother? He's also grieving so something to bear in mind if he's acting out of character.

Thanks for the reply. My uncle is an incredibly stubborn person and I approached him again today and he refused to even aplogise for the mistake, let alone offer to pay for it to be fixed. He is my mother's brother and I understand he is grieving, but that alone is not an excuse for doing this without our permission.

I thought the memorial company may be at fault because the cemetery plot essentially belongs to myself and my brother now. I thought it was akin to me owning land and my uncle getting a construction company to build a house on it without my permission. Surely it is up to the memorial company to ensure that they have the permission of the right people before making a very hard to change engraving on a headstone?

wiggle16

Hi OP

I think this issue is really more for the consumer issues forum: https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/forumdisplay.php?f=580 - I haven't moved it there as I don't think you will get a different answer to your question, though. You're free to ask the question there all the same.

The thing is, your uncle got more work done to the gravesite than just the engraving on the headstone. While you said your uncle offered to sort this out for you, you haven't mentioned if sorting it out included paying for the work and engraving, and if so how much of the cost he was to cover - and as you didn't find out about the engraving until you visited the grave, I would assume that he had already paid for that, if not all of the work, himself. If he has already spent money on the gravesite and engraving then even with the mistake on the headstone I'd be very much disinclined to persue him further to correct the mistake, if you want to maintain any sort of relationship with him. As BBOC pointed out, if you want this changed you're going to have to cover the cost yourself and I think doing so would be wise if you want to maintain your relationship with your uncle.

I thought it was akin to me owning land and my uncle getting a construction company to build a house on it without my permission

^^^ I will say, in terms of legality, it is definitely not akin to this. The burial plot does not belong to you in the same sense as plot of land would.

I think it would be worth your while talking to the memorial company again, explaining what has happened and expressing how much you would appreciate if they could take the circumstances into account when calculating the cost of the correction, but that will be up to them.

By all means post your question in Consumer Issues but I'm not confident the answer will change.

As the question would be more suited to that forum I am going to lock this thread.