Do You Need a Death Certificate to Arrange a Funeral?
Here at Newrest Funerals, we are asked all sorts of questions about funerals and the arrangements that often go on in the background to ensure they go well. It is important to note that there are no questions that you shouldn’t ask us because we deal with all aspects of funerals, modern and traditional alike. In other words, if you are unsure whether to ask us something or not, then we would encourage you to do so.
We’ll always do our best to give you a straightforward, honest answer whatever it may be. Of course, we do get asked some questions more than others and one of the most common is whether a death certificate is needed to arrange a funeral. The short answer is that it is not. However, there is a bit more to it than that so a fuller explanation is in order.
Firstly, you can arrange your own funeral, these days. With our funeral planning service, you can decide exactly what sort of service you would like, how much you would like to spend, where the service will be held and whether or not you want to be cremated, buried or have a burial at sea. Lots of people plan their funerals while they are in perfectly good health and very much alive, nowadays. Of course, under such circumstances, appointing funeral directors and so on, means that no death certificate will have been issued. Not only is it possible to arrange a funeral without a death certificate, but it is also possible to set up an affordable payment plan to settle all of the costs involved in advance, too.
If you are planning the funeral of someone who has recently died, however, then it is a little bit different. To be clear, you still do not need a death certificate to begin making plans. You can call us right now if someone you know has died and it has fallen to you as the next of kin or a close friend to make the funeral arrangements. We can take you through each step of the process, including advising you on what to do if you have just turned up at their home, for example, and only recently found that they have passed away.
In short, we can get involved long before a death certificate may have been issued. If you need advice about how the body should be handled until a death certificate has been issued, then we can help. We can also assist you if the body of the deceased is currently in a hospital morgue and you would like it to be released.
Remember that arranging a funeral of a loved one can start whenever you are ready following their passing. Whether this is before the local registry office has issued a death certificate is up to you. Note that you do need to register the death of the deceased, however. This is a legal requirement and, again something we can assist with. Your chosen firm of funeral directors won’t need to see the death certificate to start making their arrangements. Nevertheless, you will need it for other matters, such as dealing with the deceased’s rent account, their estate or their bank account, for example.
Feel free to call us for individually tailored advice right now.
