Should Funeral Instructions Be In My Will?

Planning out a funeral certainly seems like a morbid task.  But the fact of the matter is that the act of planning out your funeral, whether it's done by you or someone else, is something that has to be done eventually (in light of the fact that death is one of the two things in life that are guaranteed).  So the funeral planning is one of the things that many of my forward-thinking cilents do.  And the question of whether the funeral instructions should be contained in the will often comes up.

As is usually the case with legal questions, the answer to this one is "yes, but...".  I usually encourage my clients to go ahead and talk about their funeral plans in their wills, assuming they have strong feelings on that topic, but you need to go beyond that. 

The problem is that when someone dies the will is often not even opened until sometime after the funeral.  You can imagine the loved ones' awkwardness when they discover that the funeral instructions in the will do not match up with what actually happened at the funeral. 

So, go ahead and include your funeral plans in your will, but you need to verbally indicate your wishes to your family as well.  You can even give them a document, separate and apart from the will, which spells out all of the funeral plans for them.  Setting up your funeral plans with the funeral home of your choice ahead of time also makes sense.  In other words, you should not rely on your will as being the sole source of funeral plan information for your family.

I will also mention that making funeral plans ahead of time, as morbid as that process may be, is almost always deeply appreciated by loved ones.  Having funeral plans in place removes a challenging administrative burden from your family as they go through an emotionally difficult time.