More details to this question:
My father passed away and my estranged grandmother decided to plan his funeral without my and my sisters involvement. I assume she also signed the papers for the funeral payments but now she has turned around and said that it is our responsibility to pay. Me and my sister did receive life insurance from him, but we are not head of his estate nor is she; we also didn't make any decisions or sign any of the papers regarding the funeral. So who is legally responsible for the payment?
1 ANSWER
Normally, the funeral expenses come out of the estate of the deceased. If your father had a will, it would normally have a provision about how funeral expenses are to be paid, normally from the residuary estate. While technically you probably have no liability for the funeral expenses, in practice you do, because unless your father left an unusual will, your share of the estate would be reduced by the estate paying for the funeral. If your grandmother signed the contract with the funeral home, she will have to pay on that contract, but she may turn around and seek to be reimbursed from the estate, and might have a good claim (although the estate should not have to pay for any extravagances that the beneficiaries did not agree to.)
Answered on Apr 25th, 2014 at 12:22 PM