Cut price funeral??

[MAD87]

I've only been to one obsèques here - a rather dismal cremation in September 2022. The widow paid £3.5k by GB credit card.

[Blaze]

We have been to quite a few funerals - cremations and burials - here. When you look at the elaborate French graveyards and all that concrete, stone and marble, no wonder funerals are so expensive. With the cost of energy rising, it's going to cost even more to keep those ovens burning at around 850°C.
Without exception, all the French funerals we've been to have been really dreary on the music side even if some of the eulogies have been interesting.

For my mother's cremation/funeral, we had "Blaze Away" at the end, a tune she loved. I decided to warn everyone what was coming so they wouldn't be shocked !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aTNkaumX-VQ

[Antonia]

Probate is not always necessary - see https://www.gov.uk/applying-for-probate

Very true, unfortunately we fell over the asset limit. I read somewhere that HMRC dreaded having to deal with non resident probate issues and tended to just scan the figures before signing off. Certainly I would be amazed if anyone had actually read through the half a tree I sent to them. The multilingual death certificate was accepted by everyone except the life insurance company who required cause of death. They said it was to make sure he hadn't committed suicide.

[Liz]

In our area there is a public funeral service which is much cheaper than the commercial companies. They all use the same funeral 'parlour' anyway!