Legal requirements for a funeral

The law in England and Wales sets very few requirements for a funeral. The death must be registered, the registrar or the coroner must have issued the paper that allows a burial or a cremation, and the burial or cremation must be recorded. Almost everything else, the service, the coffin, the cars, the flowers, is custom rather than law.

• Registration: within five days of the death, at the register office, unless the coroner is involved.
• The certificate for burial or cremation: the green form from the registrar, or the coroner's order where there has been an inquest. Without it, no cemetery or crematorium will proceed.
• For a cremation: the crematorium's application, signed by the person arranging it, and the medical paperwork that confirms the cause of death.
• For a burial: a grave in a cemetery or churchyard, or on private land with the landowner's agreement and the burial recorded.
• For a repatriation out of England and Wales: notice to the coroner, and the coroner's acknowledgement before the coffin leaves.

There is no legal requirement to use a funeral director, to have a service, or to hold the funeral within a set number of days. Scotland and Northern Ireland have their own registration rules and timescales.

For the two things we arrange, a direct cremation and a repatriation, we obtain every one of these papers ourselves, and the only form the family signs is the cremation application or our own instruction form.

Who can arrange the funeral

The family does not need probate or letters of administration to hold a funeral, and should not wait for them. Until a grant arrives, the executor or administrator can still arrange the funeral, tell the organisations and gather information. Whoever arranges and pays for the funeral is entitled to be repaid from the estate before any debt or any inheritance.

If no one can arrange it

When no one is willing or able to make arrangements, the local council has a legal duty under the Public Health (Control of Disease) Act 1984 to provide a simple cremation or burial. This is called a public health funeral.

Read next

The paperwork in order is in what to do when someone dies in the UK, step by step, and the registration itself in how to register a death. For a coffin leaving the country, the rules are in the rules for moving a coffin across borders.

Related terms: Registering a death and Types of funeral. Every term in the funeral glossary.