Media

Since 2012, the figure has dipped up and down, but last year the costs of what are also known as public health funerals reached its highest point at £18,000, almost double the amount spent the previous year (2014/15).

The cost of Public Health Act funerals, also known as “Paupers’ funerals”, is on the rise. These are arranged at the council or hospital’s expense when people die with no known next of kin or nobody willing to pay.

Local authorities can apply to the Finders International Funeral Fund for a subsidy towards the cost of their Public Health Funerals.

Drawing up a will is the only way to ensure your assets are distributed according to your final wishes.

It’s relatively easy to make a Will. Yet an astonishing 50 percent of people put it off, sometimes forever. So what happens then...?

This issue has become more apparent since 2014 when the Government cut funding for will searches in cases where a deceased person has no immediate family.

For years house prices and rents have only ever gone up as a housing crisis looms – but at the same time hundreds of thousands of homes are left empty. This is why There more than 610,000 homes standing empty in England, with more than 50,000 in London alone, according to the charity Empty Homes .

Founder member of IAPPR and MD of Finders International, Daniel Curran, discusses scams and industry standards on the prestigious national BBC Radio 4

A “lonely” ex-soldier from Scotland lay dead for up to seven months in his home in England without anyone bothering to find out if he was alive.