Is there any legal way that a dying person can prevent some people from attending their funeral. Would funeral directors have the power to stop named persons from attending as the dying wish of the deceased.
Can the dying person hire doormen who will prevent named persons from attending their funeral. Can a paid doorman exclude people from funerals. Are there any laws forbidding this.
What other steps can one take to ensure this. Is there anything in law that can be done to ensure that dying persons wishes.
The question is mainly for a person living or dying in the Uk but will be keen to know how someone in USA could approach this.
I think you need to have a sympathetic, and strong, funeral director and executor. Make it clear to them that it’s your express wish that Person X not be allowed to attend the service, and make plans with them ahead of time for how they’ll handle it if Person X does attempt to attend (and, how they would keep Person X from entering without their knowledge).
The venue of the service might be a factor, as well (though, again, IANAL). A funeral home is likely treated as a private business for this purpose, and I’m guessing that they would be within their rights to refuse entrance to Person X. If the funeral is in a church, that might be a different situation (but, again, I’m not certain).
Edit: without knowing the specific details, it might also be worthwhile to (maybe through a third person) let Person X know, ahead of time, that they will not be welcome at the service. OTOH, depending on Person X’s personality, that knowledge might be the sort of thing that would encourage them to attempt to attend, simply out of spite.
You can let your wishes be known to your surviving friends and family. Not to be crass, but you’ll be dead, so how will you know who is there and who isn’t? Funerals are for those left behind, not the one in the casket/urn.
I would imagine that if you can prevent someone from attending a wedding in a church, you can prevent someone from attending a funeral there. And there should be no question that you can prevent someone from attending your wedding. No?
I was speaking to the ability to do so, not the frequency. The poster seemed to imply that the church was “open to the public” or something. Not necessarily so. There is nothing stopping you (the planner) from requiring invitations for entry to the funeral, just as in a wedding. Nothing I know of, and I’m happy to stand corrected if I’m wrong.
Now, as we all know from the famous Westboro Baptist Church case, you cannot prevent someone from getting somewhere near your service and making their presence known.
Yes, but I’ve never attended a wedding in which we were asked to show our invitations at the door for admittance. Then again, I wasn’t invited to William and Katherine’s wedding.
It does sound like the OP is looking for some level of official / legal method of guaranteeing that certain people would be barred from admittance, and I’m not sure if there is one, other than enforcing trespassing laws.
After some celebrity deaths, I’ve seen articles that say that the funeral will be private but a public memorial service will be held at a later date. That certainly suggests that you can limit who attends the funeral itself.
Typically for a wedding, if you have potential unwanted guests, you arrange with a few of the attendees whom you know and trust, and who are physically imposing types, to be prepared to escort the unwanted individuals from the venue as necessary. I would think the same would apply to a funeral. When you make the funeral arrangements, you could ask some trusted friends to watch the door to prevent unwanted intruders. You could certainly speak to some people now to make sure that your wishes are carried out.
In the US, you need to hold the funeral in a private location. I really don’t know anything about UK laws, but in the US, you do not have to hold a funeral in a funeral home. You need to have the funeral in a privately owned place, and arrange for security. Have a list of people who are to be excluded, and issue invitations. Either include only those who have been invited, or require the people who show up to show ID to the security people. If anyone asks, say it is because you can have only a certain number of people due to fire laws.
Arrange all this yourself ahead of time, including putting a security company on retainer.
Now, most cemeteries are public places. You may not be able to stop people from coming to graveside services. However, there are a few private cemeteries. I imagine that plots there are more expensive than plots in other cemeteries. But is you want to exclude people from graveside services, you need a private cemetery. Or skip the graveside services. Hold the rituals as needed in the private location, then have the burial with no one in attendance: no long line of cars in procession to the cemetery, and so forth. You could even arrange for whoever is in charge of the actual burial to transport the casket at some other time than immediately following the service.
Or, you could be cremated. If you are cremated, then in the US, your ashes can be scattered or buried anywhere the owner is OK with having them placed. If you want your spouse to bury them in a cardboard box in the backyard, so be it. And you can exclude anyone you want from your private property.
I’ve been married and divorced twice. I am not in contact with either of my former wives. I could not confirm where either is living - or, even, if they are still alive.
My will explicitly states that I do not want either of them to be informed if I die. I’m actually not ultra-bitter, but there’s no reason they should be involved at all if something happened to me. It would not be necessary, and it would not be good for anyone.
This is obviously non-binding and does not preclude them finding out through other means, but letting one’s wishes be known in no uncertain terms is a start.
ETA: **RivkahChaya **is obviously correct, though this might strike the rest of the mourners as inappropriate.
Your will is probably not going to be read immediately after you die, so your survivors may not learn about this wish soon enough. So you should probably let them know in advance.
I am chronically early to everything so I wonder if I will be too early to for my cremated ?? ! The OP should tell their healthcare proxy their wishes . I told my daughter and her husband I don’t want a Rabbi and especially a preacher near me on the death bed or I will come back and haunt them !
