When a repatriation is delayed: the usual reasons

A repatriation is a chain of offices, each with its own timetable, and when one of them is late the whole chain is. There are five usual reasons, and four of them a good company sees coming. This guide is what each looks like from where the family sits, so that when the date moves you can tell which it is and whether the company should have known.

1. The coroner, the court or the prosecutor

The largest and the least movable. If the death was sudden, unexplained or unnatural, the authorities where it happened will not release your loved one until they have finished, and a post-mortem is days while an inquest or a court file can be weeks. In the UK this is the coroner; abroad it is a court, a prosecutor or a medical examiner. No company can hurry it, and any company that told you a date before the release was confirmed was guessing. What a good company does is tell you on the first call that this applies to your case and that no date is possible until the release, and then tell you the day the release comes. The UK version is in what happens when the coroner is involved.

Separately, every repatriation out of England and Wales needs the coroner to be notified, with four clear days to reply. A company that sends that notice late has caused its own delay, and this is the one to ask about: when was the notice sent?

2. A document missing, or in the wrong order

The commonest avoidable delay. A death certificate translated before it was legalised has to be translated again. A consulate that wants the embalming certificate countersigned sends the file back. A coffin certificate that does not state the standard the airline requires is refused at the cargo terminal, and the coffin goes back to the chapel of rest. Each of these is a day or three, and each is a company’s mistake, not the family’s. What documents does a repatriation need is the list and the order; a company that has done your destination before does not make these.

3. The consulate

Every destination’s consulate in London has its own days, hours and requirements, and some receive documents on one or two mornings a week and return them a week later. A consulate that changes what it wants between one repatriation and the next, which happens, adds days that nobody could have planned for. A good company knows the consulate’s calendar and books the vehicle or the flight around it rather than before it; a company that booked the flight first pays the airline’s change fee and loses the days.

4. The carrier

By road, a vehicle leaves when the documents are in hand, and the only carrier delays are the ones anyone on a motorway has: weather, a closed pass in winter, a ferry cancelled. By air, the airline’s cargo schedule for that route sets the day, cargo space for a coffin has to be confirmed rather than assumed, and a connection is a second chance for a delay. A flight that is full for cargo on Thursday is Saturday’s flight, and there is nothing to be done except have known that on Tuesday. By road or by air explains why road is more predictable.

5. The weekend

Registrars, coroners’ offices, consulates, legalisation offices and their counterparts abroad keep office hours. A death on a Friday afternoon reaches the first of them on Monday, and a document that needed one more signature on Friday at five gets it on Monday at nine. We work through weekends; the offices we depend on do not. A good company tells you on the first call that the calendar will cost two days and does not pretend otherwise.

What an honest company does when a delay happens

Tells you the same day, in plain words, which of the five it is, what the new shape of the timetable is, and where your loved one is meanwhile, which is nearly always still safely at a chapel of rest with nothing changed for them. Then tells you again when the next thing happens. How long does a repatriation take sets out what decides the timetable in the first place, and a company that explained that to you on the first call will usually be the one that explains the delay on the fifth.

What you can do

Ask which of the five it is. Ask when the coroner’s notice was sent. Ask whether the consulate has the file and when it is due back. If the answers are vague, ask to speak to whoever is actually holding the file. And if a family abroad has already set a funeral date, tell them today that it depends on the release, so that the delay is a disappointment and not a catastrophe. Repatriation, step by step is the whole chain, so that you can see where the late link sits.