Credit crunch holding up funerals in Britain

Holding up people when they are trying to grieve and bury their loved ones... This will cause "civil unrest" if it continues to a larger scale.

from source:

"Hard-working funeral directors who are already feeling the pinch of the credit crunch are, in contrast to usual practice, having to refuse to undertake funerals without first receiving payment," explained MP Daniel Kawczynski.

A funeral director in his Shrewsbury constituency in western England is still waiting to bury a 77-year-old man who died on August 13.

www.breitbart.com...

reply to post by LookingAround

Sub-prime funerals are no longer considered a good investment. We need to adjust to the realities and live longer.

This is just too sad for words.

It does put a new perspective on the whole financial mess. You can't even die to get out of it?

Wow, im honestly speechless, i feel sorry for the families.

Wow!

Good thread OP - starred and flagged!
This is a side of the credit crunch you wouldn't even think about - and potentially the start of where it begins to have a detrimental effect on day to day living!
Funerals are expensive, around £5000 for a basic one i'm sure. I know if I had the unfortunate luck to have to arrange one just now I couldn't afford it.
What's the alternative? A binbag and buried in the back garden!?

Maybe this was what all those FEMA coffins in Georgia (America) were for!

WoW. I thought that the government and the money that we people put into it was for the benefit of the people.

Imagine what can happen if body's are to be allowed to be lying around for weeks. And no more room to store them. Think of the epidemic it could cause besides grief.

Money and greed has made us un human and selfish

[edit on 27.06.08 by spy66]

Mm, mixed feelings on this one. My first instinct is to query quite why funerals are so expensive ... all you're really doing is putting your nearest & dearest in a box then either burning or burying it, after all. How some funeral directors can possibly justify their outrageous fees I don't know. I've never seen a poor funeral director, to be honest, and those delaying funerals until estates get wound up should be thoroughly ashamed.

Most of the blame for this, however, lies with Jobcentre Plus & their decision to centralise the Social Fund from local DWP offices to large processing centres. In doing so they've lost many experienced members of staff, created an administrative nightmare for many families and changed priorities from Funeral Payments for the recently departed to Crisis Loans for the scum of the earth.

I can tell you that you have to pay money to get your loved one in the ground. You can call it rent of property. Unless you put your loved one in your back yard.

Wow. I always thought funeral companies were the safest bet in the world. To be honest it never occurred to me that if the financial system collapsed even they would be in danger.

But this is a human tragedy, not a financial one. No words could express how relatives of the deceased must feel if they can't even afford to bury their dead!

I seem to remember something from history called a 'pauper's funeral'. Is it really coming to that already?

It seems there is already provision for these circumstances:

If there is no money to pay for the funeral, the local council should arrange and pay for a simple funeral (or sometimes the hospital will do so if the person died there). This will be a dignified funeral followed by cremation or burial, and is not like the old 'pauper's' funeral.

Source: Help the Aged

Does this perhaps mean the council can't afford the funerals?!

Deceased people are supposed to be buried within 10 days of them being pronounced dead to prevent phenomenal complications.

i see the hands of a reporter skewing the facts all over this...

a deceased relative/family member, would always have a death insurance policy connected to them for the family/relatives to seek the services of burial agency.... that is always going to cost more than a 'john doe' internment by a government provided agent.


a funeral-burial is always an 'elective', it is not mandantory....
the government coroner office should be able to guide you to the proper direction.

when a death certificate is issued, law requires the body be processed & stored for the communities health reasons...
i think embalming is not required??? when creamating the corpse

could someone help put to rest this passion issue that the reporter is glamorizing for their own reputation.

Originally posted by Relentless
This is just too sad for words.

It does put a new perspective on the whole financial mess. You can't even die to get out of it?

What's even sadder than that is the fact that most of these people are probably worth more dead than alive.


Now THAT should tell you something is wrong.

reply to post by LookingAround


OMG, that is so weird.. I never would have imagined funerals being caught up in this mess..

I guess if you have to wait, there cannot be an open casket .. so gross..


I don't know about large scale riots over it though .. a few more proscriptions of prozac maybe..

The government should get involved in the funeral business. This situation needlessly drains the social security fund and contributes to the overall financial malaise.

This sorrowful situation doesn't exist in Russia, because of the promise Nikita Khruschev made back in 1960s in his UN speech: "We will bury you."