Tara (00:56):
It is episode 21 of the Art of Estate Planning podcast and the dream team is back together. Carrie is back in the studio with me. This is our first time recording together for 2025. So hi, Carrie.
Carrie (01:11):
Hi. The crew is back together. I'm excited!
Tara (01:14):
I am too. It's been really nice. I hope everyone listening has enjoyed our summer series, but we are back. We've got a whole bunch of exciting topics prepared for this year, and today's topic is a little bit different to some of the others we've covered. It's really focusing on the practical around funeral wishes. I don't know where this conversation will go to be honest. We're going to talk a little bit...
Carrie (01:40):
It's a bit of a dark one, Tara, just to kind of start off like summer is over now too the dark.
Tara (01:47):
I know, it just happened to fall that way. So yeah, I think we're going to talk a little bit about practical and our experiences with funerals. Perhaps what we've done in our own estate plans and tips or things not to do in terms of guiding clients with dealing with this aspect of their estate plan. I just have to make a huge confession to begin with, which is the topic of funeral wishes and the burial and cremation and the whole practical process around that is actually one that I feel really out of my comfort zone with, which is pretty ironic as an estate planning lawyer, but to my happy place or comfort zone in estate planning is the tax consequences, the trust deeds, the real dry stuff. I have to admit, I don't have a lot of lived experience when it comes to dealing with this stage of the estate planning process. So I guess with that said, Carrie, I know that you do, and I was going to let you drive most of this conversation.
Carrie (02:56):
I probably wanted to start off talking about how we came up with this as a topic as well, because I think that probably people listening, probably going, what on earth are these two girls talking about ladies? Ladies, what are these two ladies doing talking about funeral wishes for? And I think it started from memory because I sent you a reel about a custom overseas where they actually exhume the dead and they redress them, they dance with them, and I just think that's wild, right? My brain was like, oh my God, that to me is the total invasion of that kind of resting place. But I also then started to think, hold on, maybe this is just a me thing. I think that we view the world through our own lens. And so I was thinking maybe this is just because this is the way that my culture, so to speak.
(03:43):
I dunno if white people have a culture, but my culture sort of thinks that burial and funeral wishes should happen because I had a conversation with the Maori girl many years ago who for those that are listening, marry people have a tradition where the family don't leave the body of the deceased person for a few days. They kind of eat, sleep and live next to that person for a few days, and there's a series of people come over for that time. And so she said that when she was a child, she attended a white people funeral and she said they took the body away and she said, where are they taking them? She was really distressed by that. I just thought that was really interesting to talk about that process of funeral arrangements and then also from obviously tying it back to an estate planning practitioner perspective, what we can do to help our clients with those. Before we get into the legal stuff though, I did go down as is my favourite thing to do a little bit of a rabbit hole, and I started going, what are some of those wild and wonderful funeral and death related ceremonies that happen across the world? Because I think it helps us as estate planning practitioners to guide clients that come from diverse backgrounds.
(04:54):
I went through a few fair few lists. A lot of people in different cultures like to be buried up high, so there's some sort of thing about being connected to heaven or the version of which I just, they'll allowed to be put up on stilts or they'll be attached to the side of a mountain, which just is crazy to me. But again, that's, that's the background I come from. We all know those old Nordic rituals of piers and sending the boats off that are a flame and any sort of water-based burials. There's different cultures that parade the body sort of through town, so to speak, which in our own culture, sometimes we do do that as well. We do drive the hearse through town out to a burial if that's where we're going. There's conversion of ashes into different items that the people then hold onto.
(05:45):
So I think they were called death beads or funeral beads or something like that. And I do know there are places that do that for pets, people bearing bodies in hollowed out trees. We also know all the ancient Egypt sort of mummification things. And then probably my favourite was in Africa, I think it was Ghana, but I could be wrong. So if you're listening and you've got experience, let me know. But they have this thing called fantasy coffins where the coffins are these really elaborate pieces of art, really. And so I saw this big kind of eagle and a ship and my favourite one was a Twix bar. And I just thought, what a way to go out right? Go out with a bang. This is the best version of what we bury our parents in so to speak, giving them the final run out.
(06:35):
But all these different things made me think about, I kept thinking about this Twix bar and I thought, I wouldn't want a Twix bar. I'd want a picnic or a cherry wrap. Cherry ripe is for me. And I just think how do we as humans convey what our wishes are and how do we then as practitioners help extract those wishes from people? That's probably my biggest thinking around that because I'm making light of it here because I think that's what we have to do when it comes to estate planning is keep it a little bit. But it is a very real thing that for years after, if you've ever been involved in the organisation of a funeral, you're thinking, did I do the right thing? Okay, so one of the biggest things that kind of haunts me is when my mom passed, we kind of always knew that she'd want to be buried because she said no one would want any of her organs anyway.
(07:32):
And she wanted to go into the ground hole, some sort of connection to some Catholic beliefs there from old, hilarious. But that's what she wanted and that's what we did. So we buried her in a cemetery where I make a bit of a joke that the most real estate we own in that small town is in the cemetery because we've got five generations there. So we buried her and we put her in this rest because we thought we want her to look beautiful. She loved to have her eyebrows perfect and her nails done, and I was very happy to know that they were done the week before she died so that she'd be happy that her eyebrows and nails were done. But we put her in this beautiful, it's actually probably this colour shirt I'm wearing, like a pale pink go, a dress that she wore to a wedding not long before that.
(08:14):
And I thought, oh, she feel beautiful. But then when I went to pack up her stuff, so several months later, my mother was always well known for getting around in her pyjamas. All my friends used to know that my mom would get around in a pink dressing gown all the time when we were having parties. She'd be in the house, we'd be out the backyard causing mischief, and she'd just come out every now and again and check on us in a pink 90 and a pink dressing gown. And I just thought, God, we should have buried her in pyjamas. That kind of eternal comfort thing. And it just really interesting to me how we think about that process. And the process is so rushed in the short term when someone passes away, you'll see a funeral director within 48 hours, and then that funeral director takes instructions from you and you can bury someone extremely quickly under some circumstances, and then other circumstances, it can take several weeks, but most of them tend to get directions from you within sort of 48 to 72 hours.
(09:15):
And in that time, the decisions you have to make, you're clouded by grief, and you don't always have a written instruction list. Not everybody talks about what they want when they die. Now again, my mother was strange and so am I, and we used to talk about these sorts of things, but there's nothing like being able to see some sort of sanction from them saying that, yes, this is what I would've wanted. So I think here is where we tag in that concept of how do we convey the instructions of either ourselves or our loved ones of our clients, rather to our loved ones what we would want. Now, I've always been on team letter of wishes, so to speak, meaning that we record those sorts of instructions in letters of wishes. And the reason that is, and I double checked last night to make sure I wasn't going mad, is that funeral instructions aren't actually binding on your executor.
(10:12):
So if you're listening and you haven't heard of that before and you're writing funeral instructions in your wills to make your clients feel better heads up, it's not binding whether you write it in the will or a letter of wishes. So that's kind of my first thing is that I think that knowing and guiding the client into where to put these sort of directions is really important. I will come back to that a little bit, but before we come back to that, I just wanted to say too that when we talk about these documents, the documents are all well and good, but we also have to have conversations with people. Now, as I said, that timeframe for when you pass away and when your funeral is arranged, I don't think many people are running around screaming for a copy of the will. Okay? So we've got to be really careful with our documents that when we talk about how we document those, I say it's easier to have conversations while you're alive than it is when you're dead.
(11:10):
So sometimes it's better to pass on those wishes while you're still alive. So if you are sitting here and you're listening and you yourself have some really specific funeral wishes, or you have a client that said, this is what I want to do, we're going to talk to you about how to document that for them. But I think the biggest thing we have to get across to you is talking about telling that person to actually tell the important people what they want in terms of documenting the wishes themselves. I think that the first thing is if you are of an age where you're feeling your mortality, a lot of people, and I do think this is actually a really good idea, you go through those prepaid funeral arrangements. I really like these for multiple reasons. Number one, you get the funeral that you want, and number two, you take the financial stress and the emotional stress off your family by actually prepaying and preor organising that.
(12:07):
So I think that if people do have some really specific instructions and they are in that stage of their life where they are feeling that it's closer rather than further away, I think that it's a really big gift that you can give to your family. I'm going to put a big asterisk on that though, and that's because I think that, and this is again from personal experience, those instructions that we leave behind, even though we're doing it, we want this sort of funeral. I think that funerals are about the living. They're not about the dead. So just being really careful and again, helping craft our clients' instructions around making sure that they're aware that this is what you might want, but is this really what this is the outcome? Do you really want that? So your family, I mean, I know there's a family member of mine that doesn't want any ceremony.
(13:00):
They don't want any, they just want to go in the ground. No one by the graveside just in. And I've told them in no uncertain terms, that's fine, we'll do that, but we're still going to have a party without your permission. So I think that when we talk about what our instructions are and how we convey those from clients into documentation, I think it is our job to really help guide them into the realistic space of what that looks like. Tara, I know that we talk a lot about the letter of wishes as being sort of the golden child of non-binding instructions. We have a product. Is that right? That's a little bit more comprehensive than your standard letter of wishes?
Tara (13:39):
Yeah, that's right. So we've got the Letter of Wishes work book, which is like a 50 page workbook that accompanies the will. And if you've got our precedence that comes with a letter of wishes template, which might be like 10 pages long. So this workbook is significantly more detailed. It has a lot more prompts. It definitely goes into detail around the funeral wishes and decisions around the actual dying process. And it also covers off a lot of other detail too, in terms of if you've got pets or children, all of the background information you need to know about their circumstances has a lot of detail around where to find everything and all the practical detail of the first things the executors need to do and including where's the spare key and all the assets and all of that. So it's a really good resource. I would be remiss to mention that Letter of Wishes workbook without acknowledging that all the work in creating that was done by one of our wonderful community members, Bernadette Duell of Great Southern Wills. So it's a resource that she put together in conjunction with funeral directors, accountants, financial planners, I think some real estate agents as well, to really sort of compile everything that you need. And it's a resource she created for her clients, and then it has really generously allowed us to white label it and make it available for other lawyers in our community as well. So yeah, that's worth of checking out. I think we'll put the link in the show notes anybody wants to see.
Carrie (15:19):
And Tara too, I've seen in some of the social media space, a lot of practitioners that use that workbook have just made it the most beautiful product to give to their clients. They've put these, it's beautifully bound and it's got this beautiful cover page and it's kind of like a thank you for letting me help you gift, and here's this beautiful kind of document where you can put your instructions. I mean, the way that I, I don't want to use the word sell, but that's the easiest way to say the way that I sell this letter of wishes as a important product for clients is I say, this is the emotional will. Okay? The will has to be this really robust legal framework that ideally we don't have to touch too often the letter of wishes is that client's way of saying all the stuff that doesn't go in the will.
(16:08):
I talked to them about how, because it's not binding, there's not the legal stuff involved in updating it so they can update it as often as they see fit. They don't need the lawyers involved. And that way things like funeral wishes, that might change over time. At one point, I might not want Tara Lucke to come to my funeral, but then we might've repaired our relationship in 12 months time. And I can say it's like, yes, this person can come to my funeral, so to speak. So when we're talking about all that emotional stuff, that really is the document to put that in. And the other thing, I talk to clients, I say this, and this is my script with clients, so I'm going to share this with you because I think this is really valuable. The letter wishes is the most undervalued document in estate planning.
(16:53):
I only get back, and this is not an exaggeration about one, maybe two a year that shows you how much estate planning I'm doing. This is all I do, how little people return those documents. Now, having put two parents into the earth, I can tell you that neither of them had a letter of wishes, and there is not a single day that goes by that I don't wish I could have seen a letter of wishes, multiple reasons. Everything from did we bury them correctly? As I said, I think we did the right thing. We did the same ceremony for dad as we did for mum. They were too close together, but dad helped design mum. So we thought that's what he would want as well. What we bury them. And as I said, should I put my mom in pyjamas? Should I put those things in with them?
(17:37):
Is the plaque right that we put on them all the way up to when we went to clean out the house, there were these two special places in the house that we knew this is where the important memorabilia so to speak, was. And I didn't know what some of that stuff was. There's no telling me what it is or the history behind it. So when you talk about the letter of wishes with clients, yes, there's this lawyer brain part of you saying, it's not binding, don't worry about it. But when you're in that other side of estate planning, when you're in the administration and you are the family dealing with it, it is the most wonderful document and is the best gift that you can give to the people that you're leaving behind. So I think that when we are talking about that, I know we will have a lot of people in their lawyer brain, their best lawyer brain saying It's all not binding, whatever else. But I'm here to tell you that not binding doesn't mean not valuable.
Tara (18:33):
Yeah, I love that. Carrie, I'm with you. In terms of using the letter of wishes as opposed to the will, because in theory it does allow the test data to keep the wishes up to date, to keep adding to them as they see things or come across things and think, oh, I want to update my directions. If it's in the wheel, I just think it's not ever going to make those directions are not ever going to make it to the loved ones. Whereas in theory, it's easy to add them to the letter of wishes. So I've always encouraged it. And to be frank, from a profitability perspective, I think documenting those wishes can and should be done by the client, not by the lawyer trying to fit that into the legalese of the will. I also think having it come from the heart and in our own words of the client is really important as well. Not the lawyer trying to do this semi-formal informal language that we just tend to default to when we're drafting wills.
Carrie (19:40):
I think that's right, Tara. That probably is a good thing to say that when clients do send letters a wishes back, some of them want me to review it and I say to them, unless there's something specific, I'm probably not going to add a lot of value because I want the language to sound like you, not to sound like a lawyer. So I give them the template and the only things I kind of go in and change, obviously it's details that I know that if they've come to me through an advisor, I'll add the advisor's details. If they've said I want to be X, Y, Z, I'll just put a prompt in the document and highlight it for them to remind them that this is where that instructions go. And sometimes that helps too, because if they send I want to be cremated and they don't see it in the will, you can say it's in the letter of wishes.
(20:20):
So I think that when we talk about reviewing those documents, you can say it to the client that, listen, there's not a lot of value I can add there. It has to be in your language. I don't want it to sound overly legalistic. The other reason I don't review letters of wishes is that I've only ever been asked to review two, sorry, three. One of them was a man that deleted every heading and wrote a 30 page letter on how he wanted funds invested. And that was about the most boring read I think I've ever had in my life. And then two of them, I cried when I read them because they said the most beautiful things to their families in there. And I just thought, I can't do this. This is not my sweet spot. So I think that there's not a huge amount of value that lawyers can add in there, but you've got to make it really clear to the client, it has to be your word, it has to be your wishes, but it doesn't mean you can't prompt the client for instructions that they've already given you. So even if it just says, I know you had some wishes around your jewellery, here's where you put them.
Tara (21:17):
Yeah. I love reading letters of wishes that people have got because I just think it shows so much insight into who they are as a person. And they're so varied in terms of, yeah, I remember one sort of being like, oh, was it Tony Robbins has inspired me a lot throughout my life, and I hope when you are grown up that you'll be called to look at his work as well. And I dunno, I just was like, oh, I actually think that was probably one of the first letter of wishes that I read. And I went, oh, this has actually got me changing my understanding of what estate planning and legacy building is. And I think prior to that, I'd just been getting the right assets to the right people at the right time is estate planning and really focused on the assets and the tax. And then I was like, actually, there's so much more that I didn't do in I wasn't taught to do in that law firm and I wasn't taught at uni. So yeah, I think they're fascinating. I really struggle writing my own.
Carrie (22:31):
Yeah, the two I read, it was a man saying that he was writing to his sons saying, your mother has been the love of my life. You absolutely must take care of her. Just started bawling. And then another lady who, she had a table and she said, this is our family table where we for generations have sat around and shared stories and good times the table has to stay in the family. And because that rang really true to me, we used to do that at my nana's house and that sent me as well. So I just think that when we talk about those instructions, whether it be everything from the emotional stuff like this, all the way up to the practical stuff around, this is where I want to be buried. This is the sort of service I want to have. I think that we need to give our clients the forum to do that so that it is a very cathartic process for them to be able to document those wishes. It is very difficult, as you said, Tara, it's not easy, but if we can give them the right template that matches what they're looking for and we give them the right tools to do that, we can help their family then if something does happen to them.
Tara (23:36):
Yeah. Carrie, can I ask you some questions or do you have some more points to hit?
Carrie (23:42):
Yeah, hit me.
Tara (23:43):
Okay. So I've had to organise a funeral, but I anticipate that there's a lot of decisions to make as you said, in a short time, particularly while you're grieving. So the choice of music, flowers, will there be flowers? What type of flowers, which photo do you pick for the booklet? And not even the big decisions about is it a religious ceremony or where is it going to be held and all of that. But so when you've had to make those decisions, did you find it, I don't want to say nice, but if there's structure involved in having to reflect and think about the person you're making these decisions for, and did that structure help you go through the grieving process or just really think about who you're honouring? Or was it just completely overwhelming and the last thing you felt like doing?
Carrie (24:38):
I think maybe I wouldn't say last thing I felt like doing. I think that it's a combination of both. I think it is extremely overwhelming in many ways, but it's also like you become really perfunctory when something very stressful or traumatic happens. And so you kind of just follow the steps. And so if you got a really great funeral director, we were really lucky. We had, there's a fellow called Anthony Keating and his family out west too. They've been in that business for generations and he and his wife are the most wonderful humans. And they just help you guide you through the process and they give you lists and details. And so I think that when it comes to that process, I think it is good to follow the structure because it helps you, you're right, it does help you member that person. What I would say too is that I've sat next to both my father planning my mother's funeral, and I've sat next to my grandmother planning her husband's funeral.
(25:33):
And my father and my grandmother, there are stoic English people, so don't cry that often. The thing they both broke down on was picking the songs. So that's something that I sit with a lot. I haven't actually written my letter, which is because I can't pick the right songs. And it's the same when we went to pick my father's songs, I gave that job to my brother because my brothers and my dad really loved music. But now when I hear one of those songs, it sets me off a little bit. But I just think that that process is still really important to sort of think about what if that attaches to that person that gives them their personality. So when we did my father's funeral reel, it's on my social media. I think my brother did such a great job of it. Funeral directors often do it, but my brother's quite creative with that.
(26:20):
And my father's name was Brian. And so we did a little bit of a parody on the life of Brian from Monty Python because my father was a Monty Python fan. So we had the life of Brian come through at the start, it does in the film. And then at the end, we had the part where I think it might be Terry Jump sang out the window. He's not the Messiah, he's a very naughty boy because everybody thought my dad was great, but he was a very naughty boy. And so I just think that it is a little bit joyous as well to have that as that memory. So it probably ties back to that point I said before, Tara, about you can have these instructions around how you want your funeral to go, but I don't know if he would've picked that. But we did, and it was certainly fabulous.
Tara (27:06):
Oh my God, it really does sound amazing. What a beautiful way to send him off. And yeah, that's it. A person is we think how we view ourselves, but as a whole, it's actually about how our loved ones view us as well. That makes us a whole person.
Carrie (27:26):
And I think too, the process of actually getting to do that work in the funeral arrangements is incredibly cathartic. So I had everybody from obviously immediate Family to My Godfather, which was, he was best man at my mother and father's wedding and the other groomsmen and their wives helping me out with doing things. And these are people that we don't really see that often. And it was really nice to bring basically what was dad's community together. I had people ringing me from Sydney who he went to high school with because my father was really involved in, how would you say, in reunions.
(27:58):
So I think that when we talk about those sorts of instructions, I mean, one thing that would've been really, really helpful is if my father had put all the contacts in a letter of wishes because I had to go digging up through his desk to find all his old high school friends because I knew he was still in contact with them. I've got a TikTok video about things like how to add legacy contacts to your phone. So if you don't have the passcode to your phone recorded in your letter at wishes and you've got an Apple phone, apple will not let you into an iPhone that you don't have the passcode or a legacy contact attached to. There is case law in America, they will not. So there is a TikTok, if you search me, you'll find me where you can see how to set up that legacy contact. So when we talk about those letters of wishes, when someone does pass giving people the instructions, they need to be able to access some of the most valuable assets, which are photos.
Tara (28:51):
Let's put that your viral TikTok video, your famous viral TikTok video. We'll put it in the show notes so people can just go and watch that. I think that's so helpful. And it's something just such a practical detail that can remove so much stress.
Carrie (29:13):
And that's kind of what the theme of this particular episode let's say, is, is that when we talk about estate planning, estate planning isn't just about the legal, it's about the practical as well. It doesn't mean you have to go and prepare all of the practical stuff for your clients, but you need to give them the tools to prepare those practical things. Because estate planning isn't just wills and powers of attorney. It is legacy. It is a legacy plan for the people, and it is the practical outcomes that we want to try and achieve.
Tara (29:43):
So Carrie, another practical question for you. How did you pay for the funeral? Did you have to pay up front? Did they wait?
Carrie (29:51):
This is quite a painful point. I'm not a wealthy person, and so I don't carry $40,000 in my back pocket at all times.
Tara (29:59):
Sorry, about how much the funerals cost?
Carrie (30:02):
Oh, oh, here, here, here, here. Are you ready? So to bury someone, so bury each of my parents. So this is just like your funeral costs, including the fee, like the council fee to dig the hole. And of course that fee changes depending on what day you have it on as well. We wanted it on the weekend. A weekend is more expensive.
Tara (30:19):
Penalty rates.
Carrie (30:21):
Yeah, that's right. Penalty rates. I'm okay with that. We wanted people to be able to come if you've got a venue, those sorts of things. So to put my parents in the ground without any actual kind of just the ceremony, no wake, no nothing was 16 grand each. And then you have wake costs on top of that. So we spent, for my mother's wake, we were determined to have a party. My mother loved to party. We said that the best party she ever had was her funeral and she couldn't even make it. We spent $6,000 on drinks at the wake. And so for dads, we were determined to spend more. And so we spent about think it was just shy of 9,000. So when you think about that, and this isn't all the small stuff too, I went around and obviously I had to, I got some things for the decorate, the wake as well, the travel. My brother didn't have a suit that fitted anymore, so you had to buy him a new suit. So yeah, when you added it all up, it probably was just shy of say $35,000.
(31:24):
So when we talk about those costs, how you can actually get them returned, there's a couple of ways of doing it. Obviously the weight costs, you've got to pay out direct. When it comes to the funeral costs, there are two ways, and again, I've only dealt with the one funeral home, but I understand this is quite similar. Funeral costs, you can pay yourself up direct and obviously it's a reimbursement from an estate cost perspective, but I do know that you can also take the funeral home invoice to the bank of the deceased, and they will pay out a certain amount for those funeral costs. I think, for example, dad's bank was National Australia Bank, and so I took the funeral receipt to them and they paid up to $15,000. It went a little bit over. I had to pay the buffer.
(32:11):
But a lot of banks will actually pay a funeral receipt up to a certain amount. So when we're talking about funeral planning as well, we have to think about those costs and how our family are going to do that. So one of the things I do when I'm talking with clients around their estate plan, I say to them, particularly husband and wife scenario, if we're directing the super and any life insurance into the estate, so it can form part of the testamentary trust structure, where's that money going to come from for a funeral? So I make sure that they've got either cash in their individual names, sort of about $40,000 and above because if there's immediate debts that come up all the way up to, well, do they have a joint account? So I had a mother and daughter who were extremely close. They lived together, no partners for either of them. They were very much peas in a pod, and the daughter didn't really have a lot of money or make a lot of money. And so we made sure they went and set up a joint account together as a part of the mother's estate plan that would be immediate funds available to the daughter if something happened to the mother.
Tara (33:11):
And I mean, it's hard to think about, and I do want to ask you what you've planned for. And I have to admit, in terms of what I've planned for, it's very much on the assumption that I won't be dying anytime soon. So it is hard to confront these decisions and take that action, but I think that's such a valuable tip to just prompt clients to just think about it. Where's the money coming from?
Carrie (33:37):
Well, I think Tara, and so this is all just the funeral costs as well. My father, the rates bill for the house fell at the same time as he died, the rates bill and the body corporates for the unit that he owned, and so went and I didn't have a credit card, so I had to go and get two credit cards with $10,000 on the meet just to kind of float me for a short period of time until things started to pay out. So I think that if you are putting someone in charge of bearing those costs, do they have the tools they need to be able to do that?
Tara (34:06):
Yeah. Can I ask, so at any point, did the funeral director ask to check that you were the executor or did they just take for granted that you had the authority to organise the funeral and make the decisions?
Carrie (34:22):
What do you think?
Tara (34:25):
I mean, maybe your experiences in a small community and everybody, and it's different. So yeah, I'm getting no.
Carrie (34:35):
They didn't ask me. But again, we are in that unique scenario, as I said, two small towns where the Keating family knew who our family were, right? It's not a big thing, but also who's to say that my parents had appointed the right people as people as executors? So that's an interesting legal scenario. I did look into that a little bit. I don't think that's a topic for this particular podcast where I don't think that technical part is going to be something we want to dive into because it's highly dependent on state by state sort of positions, because funeral and burial instructions are common law and when it comes to cremation legislation based. So I won't go into that argument, but yes, I've never been asked to see a will prior to giving instructions. I've also never been, and this is a bit of a slight tangent, I've also never been asked to see a power of attorney in four end of life scenarios for met family members. So my dad, when we turned the life support off, my mom had a hard episode eight months before she died, and then two of my grandmothers, they were very ill thought maybe it was the end of things for them. Not once have I ever asked to see a power of attorney. So this stresses the point I said at the start that you need to have conversations with people that you've appointed and your loved ones about what your wishes are, because often decisions get made quickly before we see those sorts of documents.
Tara (35:51):
Yeah. So was there anything that was unexpected or did you learn anything that surprised you through the processes?
Carrie (36:00):
I think the sheer cost is pretty interesting to me. As I said, like 30 something thousand dollars to bury someone I thought was, I mean, I'm not saying I didn't see the value. I absolutely saw the value. We had a beautiful experience with the funeral directors and the organisation that we had, but I think we just don't really think, do we have a spare $40,000 lying around?
Tara (36:20):
Yeah.
Carrie (36:20):
So that's probably the shock to me really. I think too, the feeling that it gives you as well, and this listlessness of what am I supposed to be doing right now? Because when someone passes, there's this feeling I should be doing things like I've got to do X, Y, Z. And so the first thing I do when a client contacts me and says someone's passed away is I'll say to them, listen, now is the time to just focus on your family because there's not a lot we can legally do until we get a death certificate. So this is when you focus on your family and do your funeral instructions. I think that that feeling that it gives you is probably something that I wasn't really expecting. Again, tying that back to how we can help our clients is if there had been a letter of wishes, it would've told me all these things I needed to do and all the information I needed to be able to do things because I could have gone, okay, well dad has X, Y, Z, so I can go and shut X, y, Z down, or let them know or notify them that dad's passed.
(37:20):
So they give you a bit of leeway in terms of things. So that's probably the two things that I think that I wasn't really expecting. The third probably one just is that I think you can make these things a really joyous event. So both my parents passed extremely unexpectedly, but I didn't want it to be, I grieve. So the crying stuff I do really privately, I wanted to make sure that we use that opportunity for the funeral to really enjoy the time with the people that came out because at my mom's funeral, we were dancing, my mom loved to party and we were dancing. And my dad's, it was like all the cousins were around, and it was just a really nice feeling. I know that sounds really strange to say that, but I think I wasn't anticipating a funeral to be something that was as cathartic as it was really. But I think that, again, when we're talking about how we talk to our clients about those, that I cannot stress enough that letter of wishes.
Tara (38:19):
So Carrie being really practical, I mean, who does the death certificate? Is that the funeral director or the police or hospital?
Carrie (38:28):
So when someone dies with a condition they were known to have or were in hospital for, says an interim death certificate called a Form nine death certificate, and then that goes...
Tara (38:40):
That's in Queensland.
Carrie (38:41):
That's in Queensland, sorry. Yes, you should be saying that. And this of course is when there's no suspicious circumstances, there's no coroner needing to be involved. And also if you put on the form nine, the interim death certificate that the cause of death was something they were known to have, they don't need to have an autopsy as well. So that form nine goes to the funeral director, and the funeral director will send you the details to check that that looks right before they lodge for the death certificate. Which is really interesting because I know of plenty of cases where death certificates are not correct and they have to be corrected. There was one, I think we saw a post in one of the Facebook groups about how the funeral, I think it was incorrectly recorded, either a spouse or a child that they existed and they just didn't. And so I think that those instructions, the funeral director does do it, but if a good funeral director will send you everything to approve before it goes.
Tara (39:39):
Yeah, okay. I can imagine. There's just a lot of it's details and paperwork and all of that is just so overwhelming at the time.
Carrie (39:49):
And that interim death certificate that we got too, that does help in the short term. I did take that to the bank until we got a formal death certificate to be able to pay the funeral cost.
Tara (40:01):
And the funeral home takes care or possession of the body pretty quickly, don't they? So you have to make that choice of funeral home really fast.
Carrie (40:14):
Yeah, yeah, very quickly. I mean, for us it was never a question because as I said, the Keating family are connected to us, but the Keating's family are in Chinchilla, which is about two hours from Roma. And both my parents passed in Roma. And what I found really interesting too is that the hospital, so when they passed through hospital, the hospital has to approve the release of the body and the actual medical practitioner has to sign off on something. So my dad, we turned off life support on a Monday night, Anthony, because I rang Anthony on the way out at, I rang him on the way out to Roma because we knew dad, we were just keeping him alive so we could say goodbye. I rang Anthony on the way out so that Anthony then organised to come and see us on the Tuesday. And then on the Tuesday, Anthony came and saw us, but he travelled all the way from Chinchilla to see us.
(41:00):
So 200 just shy of 200 kilometres. And he was like, I'm really hoping that while I'm in town, that medical practitioner will sign the release so I can take your dad back with me now, otherwise I've got to come back and he's got to sit in the hospital. So we just don't think about these things. But I mean, again, small town might be very different than large town. I knew the medical practitioner that was with us, my cousin had grown up with her. And so I was like, if they don't let me know, I'll ring her personal mobile and I'll get her to sign the paperwork to release dad. So I think that you're absolutely right. These decisions around who even your funeral director have to be made within an extremely short amount of time. So while we do want these things to be reported in a letter wishes, those short-term actions really do need to be communicated with family.
Tara (41:47):
Yeah, I can just imagine It would be so overwhelming trying to, especially in a sudden death or with younger people where they've just never ever thought about any of it.
Carrie (42:01):
I just wanted to say too, this is obviously my experience. I know that there are so many factors involved in when someone passes, obviously, where they pass the circumstances of their passing, their age, their health very differently. My father passed under life support at home. My mother, we found two days after she had passed at home. So my brother found her and we had to call, the police came and checked to make sure that they didn't look like there was anything suspicious and it didn't look like she had taken her own life. There is a lot of things that happen in a short period of time. So what I'm saying here is that there are so many movie parts. What I'm saying is not gospel. This is only my experience. And hopefully that gives some people some ideas in the future of potentially what to expect.
Tara (42:51):
And Carrie, I just want to say for me, and also on behalf of everyone listening, thank you for sharing this and being so vulnerable. I think it's so mystifying because people don't talk about it. And I completely respect that decision as well because obviously it's a deeply personal and stressful and intense time of someone's life. But also, I'm 40 years old. I've been an estate planning lawyer for 17 years, and I'm asking you about the death certificate process because everyone dies. We should all know what happens, but it's sort of shrouded in the secrecy still.
Carrie (43:32):
Yeah, it's the secrecy around it is something that really is my biggest bug bear because I think secrets, again, English family, so we don't really talk about anything. I just find the truth sets people free and knowledge is power beyond anything you could ever imagine. And so that's always where we've come from is that sharing knowledge means people are empowered to make decisions. And I know it's hard and I know it's difficult to talk about these things, but it's so much harder and so much difficult to have those conversations once you passed. So sharing that information, and as I said, whether it be a conversation with the person documenting it, whatever you can do to help your clients convey that message, that's the most important thing.
Tara (44:16):
So have you designed your dream funeral?
Carrie (44:19):
No, I've chosen not to. So I think about it a lot. I hope my brother doesn't put that embarrassing photo of me in my photo reel. I think about that all the time. And I think about, are there any embarrassing photos on my phone? They're all those sorts of things. I have taken the path of letting, because my brother is obviously going to be in charge of things if something happens to me. I've taken the path of letting him design things how he would want. I have said one thing about where I am to be put, but in terms of everything else, I'm pretty much like funerals are for the living. That's my personal feeling. I can understand what you want to be really prescriptive about things, but I want my brother to design a ceremony that he would be able to live with and he would be happy with, and I've just told him where to put me.
Tara (45:03):
Okay, so do you want to be buried or cremated or something else?
Carrie (45:06):
I want to be cremated. I don't want to be buried.
Tara (45:09):
Okay.
Carrie (45:09):
Cremation wishes in Queensland. It's interesting. I did this little bit of a thinking about it, cremation wishes in Queensland, suggestively kind of binding, okay, we have legislation here, but I did actually find that there is case law to say that it's actually not necessarily binding because it's still ultimately up to the executors. So Doty and Dodi is the Queensland case that says that section of the Cremations Act doesn't necessarily take away that a personal representative's overriding discretion around what happens. But yeah, I think I wrote something like, I'd like to be cremated and put in with mom and dad, and if they won't let you do it, because some places you have to put ashes in certain places. I've said to employ the help of a friend in Chin, she just go out in the middle of the night and dig it in. This friend and I have been involved in cheeky things many years ago, and I'm like, they owe me a favour. Help them get them to help you dig a hole and put me in there anyway.
Tara (46:04):
Oh, I love that. That's really, so...
Carrie (46:09):
It's interesting though, when we talk about those sorts of funeral wishes as well, there are really specific rules about where you can lay human remains. So I know that people talk about all the time I want to be buried on my farm, or I want to be buried in my house paddock or something like that. Those sorts of instructions are totally dependent on town council requirements and including things like if you've got a waterway through your property, you can't stick a dead body in the ground near the waterway. So when we talk about those sorts of wishes, being aware that there are local government requirements around where you can actually put human remains. And the same thing for I'd like my ashes to be scattered overseas, the process of taking ashes overseas can be quite painful. So just make sure you know what you're setting your family up for.
Tara (46:53):
Yeah, that's a really good tip. I see on social media every now and then there's a video that does the rounds and it's like, if you bury me in my bra, I will come back and ho you. So I was going to ask you bra or no bra. And I think the same for me. I also want to be cremated. And so I think the point is a bit moot.
Carrie (47:16):
If I were to be very Tara, I'm a bra on person. The reason is is that I'm a busty lady and it just helps me feel a little bit more together. And I'm weirdly one of these women that can sleep in a bra, but I totally get the vibe about don't bury me in a bra. And also I'm the sort of person, don't bury me in shoes. I hate shoes. And so I think about this all the time, as I said with mom, should we put her in pyjamas? So interesting discussion. If you want to raise it with your family, what do you want to be buried in? Mine is no shoes and probably pyjamas.
Tara (47:50):
I actually, I have the same conundrum that you are having for your mom about myself. Yeah. Do I want to be put together? Is this the outfit I'm going to be wearing for the whole afterlife in which pay the best outfit? Yes. Shoes and yes bra. If it's just comfort, then yeah, PJ is all the way. And so yeah, it's hard to know. I mean, I love what you said before about focusing on joy. And for me personally, that is really what I want my ceremony to be like. And I definitely don't want a traditional funeral. I've only been to a couple and they've sort of been either religious ceremonies or non-denominational ceremonies, but sort of modelled after a religious ceremony, which just doesn't feel like me. So yeah, I'm here for the party, although I do need to do a little bit of work. I've definitely talked to my husband about that, but I haven't really told him what songs or anything.
Carrie (48:58):
Yeah, I think as I said, you'll know what feels right for you. You can put stuff in there or you can take my path where I've let my brother decide a lot of it. I do sit on that backwards and forwards. Do I give him the tools he needs so he doesn't have to decide? And that's not an extra stress for him. But I also think there's nothing really else to do in that short period of time between when someone passes and when you've got all the legal stuff anyway, it gives him a purpose and gets him doing things. Like for the few days after dad died, we did have a lot of chats around the music and we playing songs and there are a lot of tears with that as well, which bring out things. And I think that sometimes that's a bit of that process. But yeah, I think that everybody is going to feel differently about it. My point is, if you do have strong feelings, write it down. For goodness sake, write it down.
Tara (49:49):
Yeah, I don't know. I want to kind of get you and I off the hook a bit because we are young and we're not expecting it. And so I feel like we could put a lot of effort into designing our funeral and then things will radically change. That said, for everyone else, I'm like, you should design your funeral. I don't know. It's hard. It's hard. I have been like, I'm thinking, oh yeah, actually I've thought of two songs while we are talking, so maybe I will pop them in the letter of wishes.
Carrie (50:22):
I think that that's the beauty of that letter of wishes document is that it is, you can change it. You don't need to be touching the legal stuff. My letter wishes is actually right behind me. I've got a box of date, my brother knows something happens to me. This is the box, right? Short term, this is going to give you everything you need to get to the next step. And so I'm sitting here going, oh, should I be doing this or should I be doing that? I've still got areas highlighted in it. I updated it after dad died in it before I went on a two week holiday. I like quickly, I executed a paper, everything my brother needs and I keep thinking, oh, I should be broadening that out, X, y, Z. So the beauty of that letter, which is it doesn't have to be sort. It is very much point in time, but you can update it as often as you see fit. It is a live document, which I appreciate the pun.
Tara (51:07):
Yeah, and I mean I think if you do it right, rightly so, it is a bit confronting. So it is something I personally just tackle little bits at a time, especially anything to do with my kids. I just start crying as I'm doing it. So yeah, I think I was talking to Jared the other day, this is getting really philosophical. We were watching a documentary about this billionaire who wants to live forever and he is doing all these crazy health regimes. And I was like, isn't knowing that we will die one day Andt. That actually what makes life's moments so important and special if you literally are immortal, it's just been there, done that. This is boring. I don't know.
Carrie (51:54):
Yeah, I think that if you knew you weren't going to be here tomorrow, I think that's a very different conversation than if you knew you weren't going to be here forever. But certainly I think that that looming feel like I'm sitting here and my house is messy at the moment. My house is very much, it feels like a Friday mess level, but I'm on a Wednesday, so I was just making tea this morning thinking if I had to be sent to hospital tomorrow and something happened to me by brother's going to have to clean up this mess. And so I think we do need to live. Something is going to happen to us tomorrow because as you said, it very well could be. I find a lot of beauty in passing. I think that this is probably getting quite, as you said, not philosophical, but also existential.
(52:35):
I think life, there is no real sort of end point. We might think that we're not here anymore at a certain point, but nobody knows what happens past that. Right? Nobody knows. I think it's just a part of it. It's just part of the nothingness that doesn't, nothing makes sense. So we just have to keep doing it. We just have to keep doing it as best as we can, and I just think that particularly from a legal perspective, I know that when we talk about these estate plans that we leave for people, the whole idea of estate planning is to reduce the white noise after someone passes. Right? It is a shit time. Sorry, I said that. Sorry. If you're listening and you don't like my swearing, it is a really bad time for everybody. The way that we can make that a little bit worse is by leaving a really nice plan in place that gives our loved ones the tools they need to be able to keep on with their own lives in a way that makes sense for them.
Tara (53:28):
Yeah. Carrie, I think that's a really nice juncture. To wrap this up. Again, I just want to say thank you for sharing so openly, and I've learned a lot today, and I think hopefully our listeners will as well. It's a lot of food for thought. It's a big topic, but yeah, hopefully everyone who's been listening has enjoyed it. We'll be back next week with a less emotional topic about cost agreements. Hope you can enjoy us. I promise it will still be interesting, possibly not as interesting as today. But yeah, thank you for joining us and we'll see you next week.
