Derecho funerario y cremación
Requisitos legales para entierro, cremación, exhumación y cementerios.
Introducción
El derecho funerario regula los requisitos para el entierro, la cremación y la gestión de cementerios.
Principios fundamentales
Registration of Death — Must be registered within five days at the register office (Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953).
Authority to Dispose — No one 'owns' a body. The executor (if there is a will) or administrator has the duty to arrange disposal.
Burial — Can take place in churchyards, local authority cemeteries, private cemeteries, or on private land (subject to environmental and planning considerations).
Cremation — Requires application forms, two medical certificates (or one for hospital post-mortem cases), and authorisation by the medical referee.
Exhumation — Requires licence from Ministry of Justice (s.25 Burial Act 1857). Ecclesiastical faculty needed for Church of England burial grounds.
Coroner's Involvement — Where death is unnatural, violent, cause unknown, or in custody, the death must be reported to the coroner.
Leyes clave
Burial Act 1857
Births and Deaths Registration Act 1953
Escenarios comunes
Arranging a burial on private land
Lawful in England & Wales but subject to conditions: must not be near a water source, must not cause a nuisance, should inform the Environment Agency and local authority. Consider future sale of the property.
Disputing who arranges the funeral
The executor named in the will has the right and duty to arrange disposal. If no will, the highest-ranking administrator under intestacy rules has the duty.