Summary: Mr X complains the Council failed to tell him his father had left a will, preventing him from complying with his father’s wishes when he arranged his funeral. The Council accepts it failed to deal with this properly and has apologised. It also needs to make a symbolic payment to Mr X for the distress caused.

The complaint

1. The complainant, whom I shall refer to as Mr X, complains the Council failed to tell him his father had left a will, preventing him from complying with his father’s wishes when he arranged his funeral.

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What I have investigated

2. I have investigated events relating to the father’s will. I explain at the end of this statement why I have not investigated earlier events.

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The Ombudsman’s role and powers

3. We investigate complaints about ‘maladministration’ and ‘service failure’. In this statement, I have used the word fault to refer to these. We must also consider whether any fault has had an adverse impact on the person making the complaint. I refer to this as ‘injustice’. If there has been fault which has caused an injustice, we may suggest a remedy. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 26(1) and 26A(1), as amended)
4. If we are satisfied with a council’s actions or proposed actions, we can complete our investigation and issue a decision statement. (Local Government Act 1974, sections 30(1B) and 34H(i), as amended)

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How I considered this complaint

5. I have:
• considered the complaint and the documents provided by Mr X;
• discussed the complaint with Mr X;
• considered the comments and documents the Council has provided;
• considered the Ombudsman’s guidance on remedies; and
• invited comments on a draft of this statement from Mr X and the Council, for me to consider before making my final decision.

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What I found

What happened

6. Mr X’s father, Mr Y, went to live in a care home in March 2018. At the time Mr X was estranged from his father. After he learned of the move in June 2018, he visited his father each week. The Council had managed Mr Y’s finances since October 2017.
7. Mr Y died on 8 January 2021. Mr X contacted the Council saying he wanted to take over his father’s affairs as his next of kin. He says the Council told him it would send him a letter to sign confirming he was the next of kin, which should arrive within two weeks. Mr X arranged his father’s funeral. The funeral director contacted the Council to check there were enough funds in the estate to cover the cost of the funeral.
8. Mr X called the Council on 2 February asking about the letter he was expecting.
9. Mr Y was cremated on 3 February and his ashes were interred on 11 February.
10. Mr X emailed the Council on 4 February asking about the letter he was expecting. He said he had been told someone would call him, but that had not happened.
11. Mr X called the Council two more times before it called him on 12 February. It told him his father had a will which named someone else as the executor. The officer he spoke to acknowledged the Council had not handled this properly.
12. On 18 February Mr X contacted his MP. He said he was unhappy about not being involved in the events from 2018. He also said he had been allowed to arrange his father’s funeral despite the Council having his will and knowing he was not named as the executor. He said the Council had not shared with him his father’s funeral wishes. The MP passed Mr X’s concerns on to the Council.
13. Mr X asked the Council about his father’s estate. On 19 February the Council told him it could not disclose information as he was not named as the executor in his father’s will. It asked him if he wanted the Council to pass on his contact details to the executor, who would then be able to decide whether to contact him. Mr X replied the same day.
14. When the Council e-mailed Mr X on 1 March, it said:
• it would pass on his details to the executor of his father’s will and let them know he wanted to speak to them;
• it did not contact executors until it knew how much money it held belonging to the person’s estate; and
• it did not find a copy of Mr Y’s will until after he had arranged the funeral; and
• it had taken steps to make sure this did not happen again.
15. The Council put the errors down to a mistake made by an experienced member of staff who no longer works for it. It says a replacement has been appointed who will receive full training and will use a checklist when people have died, which will be checked by the team manager. It says this should prevent the same problem from happening again.
16. When the Council replied to Mr X’s complaint in September it apologised:
• for telling him it would send letters within two weeks, when he was not the executor of his father’s will; and
• for not checking his father’s will before communicating with him about the funeral arrangements.
17. The Council went on to say:
• “As your father’s son you would be allowed to register the death and arrange the funeral, these arrangements do not have to be undertaken by the executor of the will, however, it is accepted that if the will had been referred to there may have been an opportunity to inform you that an executor had been named. This may have provided you with an opportunity to consider allowing the executor to review your father’s will to understand your father’s wishes in respect of arrangements for his funeral. … the Finance Team have reviewed their processes to ensure that in future when speaking to family members their records are checked to see if a will is held on file.”

Is there evidence of fault by the Council which caused injustice?

18. The Council accepts it failed to deal properly with Mr Y’s affairs after he died. This prevented Mr X from complying with his father’s wishes when he arranged his funeral and has caused unnecessary distress.

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Agreed action

19. I recommended the Council within four weeks pays Mr X £300 for the distress it has caused by preventing him from complying with his father’s wish to be buried. The Council has agreed to do this.

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Final decision

20. I have completed my investigation on the basis there has been fault by the Council causing injustice which requires a remedy.

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Parts of the complaint I did not investigate

21. I have not investigated events from 2018, when Mr Y went to live in a care home. The law says we cannot investigate late complaints unless we decide there are good reasons. Late complaints are when someone takes more than 12 months to complain to us about something a council has done. Mr X has known his father was living in a care home since June 2018. If he had concerns about that, including the Council’s failure to involve him, he should have complained before now. He has recently been given more information about the circumstances around his father’s move to residential care, some of which conflicts. However, that does not provide grounds for me to investigate, as he waited several years before asking questions about the move. I have not exercised the Ombudsman’s discretion to investigate events from 2018 as:
• it may be difficult to establish what happened at the time, particularly given the conflicting information; and
• I would be unlikely to find fault with the Council for not involving Mr X in the decision as he was estranged from his father at the time.

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Investigator's decision on behalf of the Ombudsman