Funeral Directors Battle

Our charge for a simple funeral, whether traditional or alternative, is £2,900.00, EXCLUDING disbursements (third party fees).

This is made up as follows (all items are optional):-

Disbursements:

In addition to our own charges the funeral account will also include any disbursements, or payments due to other parties, which have been incurred. The funeral director will advise you of their likely nature and cost when making the arrangements for the funeral and, as we pay these third party fees on your behalf, we do ask that the cost of these is paid three working days before the funeral. If this payment is not made the funeral cannot go ahead. All disbursements known at the time of making the arrangements will be shown on your written estimate.

Unlike many of our competitors we promise that all disbursements you need for the funeral will be charged to you at the rate we pay for them.  We never add any 'mark up' to them or receive a discount which we don't pass on to you.

An example of a typical list of disbursements for a cremation is shown below:

Cremation?  But we wanted burial ...

The above prices are for a cremation. To find our price for a burial simply deduct the 'Sussex' cremation coffin and replace it with one suitable for burial from our range of coffins. Calculating disbursement costs for a burial is a little more complicated as it depends on the specific requirements, e.g. the cemetery or churchyard fees, the depth of the grave and whether there is a headstone on the grave which will need removing. You can use our Quotation Request Form to get an accurate price but, as an example, the price charged by Hastings Borough Council for a local resident for the purchase of a plot at Hastings Cemetery and the interment fee is £2,196.

Our terms of payment:

We ask you to pay for the disbursements three working days before the day of the funeral. If this payment is not received the funeral cannot go ahead. The final invoice for our charges is sent to you a few days after the funeral and we ask that you kindly pay it within 60 days from the date of the invoice. After 60 days we reserve the right to charge interest on any overdue amount at the rate of 2% per calendar month or part thereof until the account is settled in full.

For funerals where the client is making an application to the Department of Work and Pensions for a payment from the Social Fund, the difference between the amount we estimate the DWP may pay and the total cost of the funeral must be paid three working days before the day of the funeral. If this payment is not received the funeral cannot go ahead.

For funerals where our client (the person instructing us in the arrangements) is not resident in the UK, the total cost of the funeral must be paid three working days before the day of the funeral.

We accept payment by cash, cheque, debit or credit card and via internet banking.

Charges for other services available:

We are able to provide a personalised quotation for any funeral. Clicking on one of the links below will take you to a page where, just by answering some questions, you can tell us the type of funeral you want us to quote for.

When you have completed the form and clicked on 'submit' your request will automatically be sent to us.

Requests received within our office hours (Monday - Friday, 8:30 a.m. - 5:00 p.m. GMT or BST) will receive a reply by email within two hours. Requests sent outside office hours will receive a reply within two hours of the office reopening.

Our Professional Attention

The fee for our professional attention throughout the arrangements, amounting to £1,690.00, covers the arrangements interview, administration, use of the Chapel of Rest, and the attendance of the funeral director and four pallbearers at the Crematorium or Cemetery.

This fee is broken down as follows:

To explain in more detail what all this involves, listed below are descriptions of services we would often provide without incurring further expense to our clients:

The Arrangements Interview

This is the meeting between you and one of our funeral directors to discuss the funeral arrangements. This will usually be at our funeral office or in your own home. The meeting usually lasts between one and one and a half hours.

We would liaise with various parties to arrive at a firm funeral date, for instance the Crematorium or Cemetery, the minister, organist, Churchwardens, and (for burial) the gravedigger.

In conversation with you we will talk about the type of funeral service that is right for your loved one, including music, special readings and - most importantly - who is to be asked to officiate at the ceremony.

There will be discussion of your requirements for transport on the day, and all matters relating to floral tributes and/or charitable donations.

We will provide you with help and advice regarding the registration of the death, including your legal responsibilities in this regard.

We are happy to advise on wording for newspaper announcements and will be able to place the announcement in the newspaper of your choice.

Your wishes regarding visiting the Chapel of Rest will be discussed, as will the type of coffin to be provided.

If the funeral is to be a cremation, we will discuss with you the options for dispersal of cremation ashes.

The Crematorium or Cemetery will require your signature on various forms and we will assist to make this task as quick and as simple as possible.

The interview would include our detailed advice on the cost of the funeral with the production of an itemised estimate and a confirmation of the arrangements in writing.

We conclude with a review of the choices you have made, a reminder of any information/decisions still needed and an outline of what will happen on the day.

Sometimes it becomes apparent that an additional meeting is needed which we are happy to arrange at your convenience, at no extra charge.

Administration

Under this heading would come collection and delivery of certificates from and to doctors, hospitals, the coroner's office or the Register Office, completion and checking of forms and certificates and their delivery to the Crematorium or Cemetery Authorities.

The information compiled from the arrangements interview needs to be disseminated to our staff so that various tasks are carried out efficiently: collection of the deceased, preparation of the coffin, preparation of the deceased, and the logistics of managing our staff and fleet of funeral vehicles throughout the week.

Letters or emails confirming the funeral arrangements will be sent to the officiating clergy or funeral officiant.

If you have asked us to handle newspaper announcements for you they will be composed to your requirements, checked for accuracy, sent to the relevant papers and checked for their accurate reception. The cost of the newspaper announcement is added to the funeral account. The amount the newspaper bills us is the amount you pay; we do not add anything on.

Similarly, if you have asked us to order flowers for you, the cost can be added to the funeral account and the amount the florist charges us is the amount you pay; we do not add anything on. We normally order flowers from La Collina Gardens with whom we have worked for many years.

If wished, we will create a tribute page on our website in memory of the deceased person, which enables family and friends to donate to the selected charity or charities securely online through MuchLoved.com. The family can also take editorial control of their tribute page to add messages, thoughts, photos, videos and music or light a virtual candle.

Use of the Chapel of Rest

When someone close to us dies we can find ourselves overwhelmed with a mixture of emotions. In trying to come to terms with the death many people attach great importance to visiting the funeral director's Chapel of Rest to 'view the body'. Other people may not wish to do this. As in all other aspects of the funeral arrangements we would stress that it is your choice whether or not to visit the Chapel of Rest. We will be pleased, however, to discuss this subject with you so that you have the necessary information to come to the right decision.

Our Chapels of Rest are provided so that you may visit your loved one at any time, day or night. Our services in this regard, including modern refrigerated mortuary facilities at every branch, are designed to enable the deceased to rest in dignity so that the last picture you keep in your memory is positive and helpful.

On visiting the Chapel of Rest the family will be invited to a private room where their loved one is laid. Unless specifically requested by the family we do not arrange for the deceased person to be placed in the coffin at this time - instead we have found a more helpful memory is provided by being able to see them on a bed with a pillow under their head and a coverlet over them from the waist down.

Our clients are welcome to visit our Chapels of Rest at any time, including evenings and weekends; all we need is a telephone call to arrange a suitable appointment. There is no charge for any visit within office hours. We charge a fee of £50 per visit outside office hours as there will be two members of staff present to assist you.

We believe it is important that, throughout their time in our care, you know where your loved one is. Unlike some of our competitors we do not use a central ‘hub’ as a storage facility, with bodies being moved backwards and forwards between the hub and the branch office to suit the company.  With us, your loved one will remain at the branch of your choice.  If there is ever a requirement for a person to be temporarily held at another branch (for instance, for certification of death by the local doctor) we will always keep you informed.

Attendance of the Funeral Director and staff at the Crematorium or Cemetery

On the day of the funeral there is considerable preparation 'behind the scenes' before we leave, including preparation of the vehicles, closing the coffin, recording of floral tributes received at our premises and placement of floral tributes on the coffin and in the hearse. As well as supervising these activities, the funeral director will also be carrying out a final study of the arrangements to ensure all is in place. He or she will also be calculating timings (of vehicle arrival at the house etc.) with care. With a funeral, preparation is everything.

At the Crematorium or Cemetery the funeral director will manage and co-ordinate things so that you may concentrate on the ceremony itself. Our competent and experienced pallbearers will convey the coffin with dignity to its final resting-place. Their responsibilities also include arranging the display of floral tributes after the service and being on hand to provide assistance or advice to anyone attending.

After the funeral we will be pleased to present you with the cards from the flowers to keep as a memento and to distribute the flowers to a location of your choice (often the hospital or hospice, a church, a nursing home or children's home). We provide details of the deceased and next-of-kin so that the recipient of the flowers may write an acknowledgement.

Click here to return to our price list.

Unsure of the differences between a traditional funeral and direct cremation? Use the chart below to easily see what is included or excluded in each.

Services included	Traditional Funeral	Direct Cremation
Removal of the deceased to our chapel of rest (local, in hours)
First Offices (washing, dressing, etc. in preparation for visits by the family)
Visits to the chapel of rest (no additional charge in office hours, £40 charge outside office hours)
Attending to all arrangements, liaison with necessary authorities, completion of paperwork and delivery of same to relevant cemetery or crematorium office
Discussion and co-ordination of all matters relating to: floral tributes, obituary notices, dispersal of cremation ashes and catering.
Design, layout and printing of funeral stationery	Extra cost option
Funeral ceremony
Your choice of venue, day and time of funeral
Your choice of music for the service
Funeral service in church before committal at crematorium or cemetery	Extra cost option
Provision of a coffin of your choice from our extensive range (prices vary)
Provision of a simple, oak veneer coffin	optional
Provision of a plain lamboard coffin	optional
Hearse to convey coffin on the funeral
Closed van to convey coffin to crematorium/cemetery
Limousine(s) for the funeral	Extra cost option
Embalming	Extra cost option
4 Pallbearers to carry the coffin (shouldered)
Staff to convey the coffin into the crematorium
Our fee for this service (excluding disbursements)	£2,900	£999

Information we are required to display by the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA)

We are legally required by the CMA to show certain information about our prices, our business terms, who owns the company and information on the fees charged by local crematoria.

The pricing format the CMA requires is slightly different from the fully itemised way we have always shown our fees on our website and our price lists. Nevertheless, we are obliged to show them in this format and we very much agree with having a standard format to make it easier to compare different firms’ prices. It is just a shame the CMA format is more confusing than it needed to be.

Feel free to make use of either the CMA’s Standardised Price List or the information on the Our Fees page, whichever you feel is more helpful. The figures for either format all add up to the same totals anyway. If any of this is confusing please do contact us – we are here to help.

Finally, you may notice on the CMA’s Standardised Price List that we have shown a charge of £1 for visits to the chapel of rest within office hours. It has never been our practice to charge any fee for you to come and see your loved one within office hours but the CMA insists that a charge is shown for every item. Hence the nominal fee.

Click here to see our fees in the CMA’s Standardised Price List format

Click here to see our business terms

Click here to see our statement about disclosure of interests, specifically:

Who the owners of Arthur C. Towner Ltd are
Business or material financial interest in a price comparison website
Register of charitable donations to third parties connected to the funeral sector

Click here to see the prices charged by the local crematorium