Rights for deceased to determine arrangements

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978228#Comment_118978228

I think alot of what you say here is correct Andrew. I organised me uncles funeral - I was never asked if had I authority to organise the funeral, I never contacted the hospital to say x funeral director will be collecting my uncles remains and I never had to sign any documents. I just told them where my uncle was and they arranged his collection with the hospital. I suspect the funeral director arrives at the hospital mortuary or nursing home and the body is just handed over - there are no checks done on whether the funeral director has any authorisation. Also remember that hospitals and nursing homes are probably dealing with the same funeral directors every day of the week so have no reason really to question or doubt them.

Let just say someone has prearranged and prepaid their funeral. They die in a nursing home and have no next of kin. A funeral is arranged by whomever and the costs may be paid from their estate if they are found to have assets or may be paid by the council. I strongly suspect nobody bothers to ring around all the funeral directors to see if the deceased had already made arrangements. Also there is no point putting funeral info in a will when contents of a will are usually not known until weeks after the deceased is buried.

I know its something I never even thought of that my uncle could have made arrangements when arranging my uncles funeral.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978287#Comment_118978287

We only found out that my dad and cousin was executors of my uncles estate 6 weeks after he was buried.

Now my uncle should have told them this when he was alive but he didnt. This probably happens in alot of cases.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978228#Comment_118978228

the undertaker cannot take the body because they have no right. you think they have a right to it. from where does that right arise?

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978335#Comment_118978335

I think you are missing the point though - anybody can arrange a funeral - there isnt any checks done by an undertaker to make sure you are the correct person to be organising the funeral. The undertaker acts on instruction by an individual to carry out the deceased persons funeral. That individual could literally be anybody. The person organising the funeral may have no 'right' either but the funeral director works on their instruction.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978379#Comment_118978379

that is not the point I am responding to. the point I responded is where there is a prearranged prepaid funeral plan in place. another user thinks that gives the undertaker the right to take charge of the body. It doesn't.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978393#Comment_118978393

Oh my apologies - You are right in that situation the undertaker can only act on instruction by somebody regardless if there is arrrangements made or not.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978228#Comment_118978228

On the other hand, nobody is pointing to any statutory provision which would given an undertaker the right to claim a body without the authority or against the wishes of the family/next of kin/personal representatives. And the provision from the Public Health Ireland Act which I have quoted makes it clear that the primary responsibility for disposing of a body rests with the "friends or relations" of the deceased; the local government only steps in if they won't do the needful. No mention at all of undertakers doing it.

And the statements from undertakers that the deceased's wishes will be followed without any reference to family or next of kin have been taken out of their context. Unless you read the full documentation associated with the prepaid funeral plan you can't say that that qualification doesn't appear elsewhere. We've also had first-hand evidence in this thread that undertakers do alter prearranged funeral plans when the family wish it., so your interpretation of the statements you are quoting doesn't appear to be applied in practice.

Or, you could try a different approach. Find a reported case in which an undertaker claimed a body against the wishes of the family/next of kin, and his right to do so was upheld. If you can't find such a case, why might that be?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978335#Comment_118978335

Whats your source for this please?

What right do they have to take any body? How are their rights validated? Who has the right to instruct an undertaker to take a body?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978852#Comment_118978852

you are the one asserting that an undertaker has a right to take a body where the funeral is prearranged. what is your source for this assertion?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978418#Comment_118978418

They have instructions. The pre planned funeral plan IS the instructions. Who has the right to override the instructions of the deceased?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978870#Comment_118978870

this has already been explained to you in detail. you just don't like the answers. you thinks an undertakers website is persuasive in law.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978870#Comment_118978870

Undertakers have to have a representative to liaise with. They wont step in just because they heard Jimmy died down in the nursing home even though he has prepaid his funeral. They will stay quiet until contacted.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978833#Comment_118978833

I really didn’t take that quote ‘out of context’. The full context is available at https://www.fanagans.ie/home/planning-a-funeral-in-advance#

All they say about family and relatives is to let them know; “You should advise your next-of-kin, executor and/or solicitor that you have made advanced funeral plans with us, with our contact details”. Nothing about getting their agreement or approval or notifying them of this apparent critical role they will have, but no-one can find any documentation about.

But if you want to talk about ‘out of context’, your conclusion from the 1878 Act that you quoted is very much out of context. Section 158 of that Act is specifically about those who have died from infectious conditions and where the body is remaining in a dwelling house. It has no relevance to this discussion, which has nothing to do with infectious diseases, and it really is a provision for another era.

I could turn your suggestion about finding a precedent case right back at you, and suggest that you should find a case to support your suggestion that a pre-planned funeral plan cannot be implemented without permission of relatives, even where there are no known relatives. Honestly, your suggestion that remains would be kept on ice for months while searching for relatives when an undertaker is standing by with clear instructions for burial is bizarre. Can you identify any case where this actually happened?

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978870#Comment_118978870

The deceased is dead. Dead people have no rights (and no obligations). In general nobody can act on any matter on the authority of a dead person; any authority granted by a person lapses with his death, because whatever right or power it is that he has authorised someone to exercise on his behalf has also lapsed on his death. You can't act on a power of attorney, for example, when the person who has granted the power has died. A bank account mandate lapses on the death of the accountholder; the bank won't act on it. And so forth. You won't find any of these specific lapses of authorities laid down in statute, because they are all instances of the general common law rule that you cannot authorise someone to do on your behalf something that you could not do yourself. As a dead person cannot do anything, so nobody can do anything on the authority of a dead person.

There can be exceptions to this rule, but if you are arguing for an exception you need to point to some statute, or some court decision, which creates or recognises the exception. The main exception that everyone is familiar with in this context is the provision in the Succession Act that empowers (and requires) executors/administrators to administer the deceased's estate as directed by the deceased in his will (within the limits of what the law allows).

If an undertaker wants to argue that he's entitled to act on the authority of a deceased person to dispose of the deceased person's remains, he'll need to point to a legal rule, either in a statute or declared by the courts, which says that this is one of the exceptions to the general principle that a delegation of authority lapses when the person delegating the authority dies. I'm not aware that there is any rule creating such an exception.

Dial Hard

Folks, we're all wasting our time here. When he assumes a position, AJR is pretty much the most entrenched poster on Boards and literally will not budge an inch. Do yourselves a favour and move on.

Peregrinus

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979264#Comment_118979264

1. The "full context" is not the full ad, or the full brochure. It's also the contract that someone actually signs if they actually enter into prepaid funeral arrangement. I would be astonished if that didn't explicitly address the role of the family/next of kin/personal representatives in the relationship. And, as I've pointed out already, you've already had first-hand testimony in this thread that undertakers do change the arrangements as the family wish, so clearly they don't think the statement means what you think it means.
2. Read section 158 again. It covers the cases both of "the body of one who has died of any infectious disease" and also of "any dead body which is in such a state as to endanger the health of the inmates" of the house or room where the body is being kept. The second case doesn't require that the body is that of someone who has died of an infectious disease; just that it is now dangerous to health if not disposed of, which any body will be, once decomposition starts to advance.
3. I never said that bodies would be kept on ice for months to find relatives. This is Ireland; it doesn't take months to find relatives. They are usually identified within days; a couple of weeks at most*. The local authority won't take responsibility until all reasonable efforts to find relatives have been exhausted, and either none have been found, or they refuse to take responsibility, but it doesn't take months to reach that stage; a couple of weeks at most. I cannot imagine that they would short-circuit the process simply because there is an undertaker on hand willing to do the business; the family still have their legal rights, plus simple decency dictates that they should be found if reasonably possible. It's no skin off the undertaker's nose to wait; the extreme likelihood is that he still gets the gig a couple of weeks later, either because the family go ahead with the prearranged funeral, or because the local authority does. So why the unseemly haste?
4. I don't expect to find a precedent in which an undertaker tried to proceed with a prearranged funeral without any authority either from the family or the local government and was not allowed to do so, simply because I can't imagine that any professional undertaker has ever tried, or would ever try, to do such a thing. Undertakers trade on their reputation for sensitivity, tact, courtesy, propriety and decency.

* [If you have a dead body which itself is unidentified, then it can take a long time to find relatives, since you can't even start the process until you have identified the body. The body will be kept for a long time before being buried as an unknown person, if all attempts to identify it have failed. But of course in that case you won't have an undertaker ready to carry out a prepaid funeral.]

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979215#Comment_118979215

So the nursing home contacts them, as they were asked to do by the deceased, who made sure there was a note on his file with details of who to contact.

What happens next?

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978859#Comment_118978859

We have repeated posts here showing that there are little or no controls over these situations. If you breeze up and claim to be next of kin, you can organise a funeral. Similarly, we have no sign of any particular controls over the handover of the remains - no forms to be filled, no legislation covering this scenario.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118978967#Comment_118978967

No, I haven’t suggested that a website is persuasive in law. I have suggested that it would unlikely in the extreme that multiple undertakers would publish similar messages on their websites that contradict current law, and would also all fail to mention this apparent essential role of next of kin in pre-planned funerals. That would be a bit of a huge coincidence, no?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979548#Comment_118979548

it is an informal process. that doesn't give undertakers any rights. from where does an undertaker with a prepaid funeral get a right to the body? This is the third time I have asked you that and you refuse to answer.

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979553#Comment_118979553

from the experiences of others on the thread actually prepaying for a funeral is rare. and for good reason.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979589#Comment_118979589

From the person who arranged the funeral- the deceased. Where does the mortuary staff get the right to refuse to comply with the deceased’s instructions from?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979637#Comment_118979637

but they cant assign their body to the undertaker by way of contract. A dead body is not property.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979539#Comment_118979539

The nursing home wont contact the undertaker. They would contact next of kin or social services if no next of kin and inform them of the death. Its them that liaise with the undertaker not the nursing home.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979674#Comment_118979674

They’re not assigning property. They instructing them to organise their funeral.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979898#Comment_118979898

Why would they not contact the undertaker if the deceased has left instructions for them to contact the undertaker?

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979962#Comment_118979962

No they wouldnt. Nursing home staff have enough to be doing without arranging peoples funerals. No way would they take on to represent the deceased person even if everything was arranged.

AndrewJRenko

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979978#Comment_118979978

They don’t have to arrange a funeral. They don’t have to represent the deceased.

They just have to make a phone call to notify the death.

Why would they not make a phone call?

ohnonotgmail

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118979956#Comment_118979956

you think the undertaker has the right to take the body after death. that is nonsense. you have been told many times this is nonsense.

Deeec

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118980004#Comment_118980004

But someone has to still represent the deceased. Its unlikely the deceased covered every tiny detail in their pre arranged plan. I would imagine these plans only cover where you want to be buried and cremated, church you want funeral to be held, whether you want a religious ceremony etc.

There is such alot of detail to arranging a funeral that you have to liaise with the funeral director about - you have to pick a coffin ( yes there is a range to choose from), pick flowers, perhaps provide a photo, select music, provide an outfit for the deceased to be buried in, pick the readings, arrange who is doing readings, gifts etc.

Even the simplest of funerals would have alot of detail. I would imagine a cremation has even more red tape that has to be followed. No Nursing home will take responsibility for this.