General information, not legal advice. Each rule here belongs to one state and is marked with it. The rules come from Western Australia’s code, Queensland’s Funeral Benefit Business Act, Consumer Affairs Victoria and the NSW Government. A lawyer can explain what a particular contract means.
WA · cl. 2
The code’s words, before the contract’s
The client is the person who enters into the contract with the funeral organiser. The recipient is the person the funeral services are for, so the two can be different people. A funeral organiser is either a funeral director, who provides funeral services, or a funeral broker, who arranges for funerals to be carried out by funeral directors.
The code applies to prepaid funeral contracts entered into on or after the day it came into operation, and the regulations that carry it took effect on 1 March 2021.
WA · cl. 4
The paper and the signatures
The organiser must make sure the contract is printed in type no smaller than 12 point, signed by both the organiser and the client, and dated with the day each of them signed.
Where the funeral is for someone other than the client, the organiser must first take reasonable steps to be satisfied of one of two things: that the recipient agrees to the client entering into the contract, or that the recipient lacks the capacity to enter into it or to agree to it.
WA · cl. 5
The people it names
A Western Australian contract must identify particular people. It must set out:
- the funeral organiser’s name, business address and telephone number;
- where a funeral broker makes the contract and it requires a particular funeral director, that director’s name, business address and telephone number;
- the client’s name and residential address, and the recipient’s as well when they are a different person;
- the person the organiser is to contact when it is told of the recipient’s death, with their name, address and, if available, telephone number (the code gives the next of kin or the executor of the will as examples);
- the name, business address and telephone number of the investment manager who is to receive payments under the contract.
WA · cl. 6
What it sets out about the funeral
Clause 6 opens the same way: the organiser must not enter into the contract unless it sets out each of the details below. Drawn as a blank form, they look like this.
- The funeral services to be provided on the death, including death and funeral notices and floral arrangements 6(a)
- How the venue for the funeral will be chosen 6(b)
- The service for the funeral, and who will conduct it 6(c)
- How the recipient’s remains are to be disposed of 6(d)
- Design, size and material of the coffin, casket, urn, memorial or other container for the remains 6(e)
- If the remains are to be interred, the cemetery’s name and address 6(f)
- Transport for the remains and for the people attending 6(g)
- The documents to be prepared, their cost, and whether it is likely to change 6(h)
- All other services, and the agreed time within which each will be provided 6(i)
- The total cost including GST, for all the services and for each one 6(j)
- The fees or charges that will or may be charged 6(k)
- Any cemetery contract the organiser will arrange 6(l)
Lines 7, 8, 9, 11 and 12 are where the contract’s limits and extra costs are written, and the next reading takes them one at a time.
Line 10 does quiet work later. The total has to be given for the whole contract and also for each funeral service in it, including GST. That per-service amount is the figure clause 9 later holds the organiser to: it must not charge more for an agreed service than the amount for that service in the contract, except in the cases the code allows.
Qld · ss. 74, 78
Queensland: the statement that comes first
Queensland’s Funeral Benefit Business Act 1982 defines a funeral benefit agreement as “an agreement, for the supply of a funeral benefit, between a contributor and an entity”. Its rules for the paperwork before signing sit in a part that applies to agreements made after a section of another Act commenced, which the Act notes was on 1 December 2003.
Section 74 sets the order. First, the entity must give the person a clear and legible written statement in the approved form, called a client care statement. Then, still before the agreement is made, it must explain what the statement says and obtain the person’s written acknowledgement that they have received and understand it. The statement can be a document of its own or part of the agreement.
Section 78 adds one more thing to be said first. An entity that is not itself an authorised investment manager must tell the person that they could make their funeral benefit agreement with an authorised investment manager instead: that is, a business that invests money for other people and is regulated under Commonwealth or state law.
Vic · NSW
Victoria and New South Wales
Consumer Affairs Victoria’s rules for providers include a copy rule: once the contract is signed, the provider must give a copy to the customer and to any other parties to it.
In New South Wales, the NSW Government’s guide says that when a contributory or pre-paid funeral fund is being considered, the business must give information on each component supplied under the contract, and its cost, before an agreement is made, and that this information should also detail the services the contract does not cover.
National
The baseline everywhere
Products and services sold to consumers for cremations and burials are covered by the Australian Consumer Law. On information, the ACCC’s funeral services page says consumers “should be given clear information about what is and isn’t legally required to provide a funeral service”, and that businesses should also give consumers the contract terms and cost of services. Source: ACCC © Commonwealth of Australia.