Back in June, I wrote a post called “Can you afford to die?” After publishing it, I was contacted by Sandra Bento from the Ontario Ministry of Consumer Services, who offered me a great deal of information on what the provincial government is doing to assist Ontarians with funeral planning. Unfortunately, real estate got busy and the email got buried in my inbox, and I did not follow up with a post about this as I had intended to do. With a few quiet days last week, however, I rediscovered her email and thought it would be a good time to follow up and write that post.
In a nutshell, there is a new law that came into effect in July called the Funeral, Burial and Cremation Services Act, 2002. (Yes, it just came into effect. It’s the way of laws to be outdated in name before they even start. In this case, it was updated from an earlier law.) The changes are designed to provide more transparency in planning a funeral, including for pre-planning. You must be provided with certain pricing information and documentation, prepaid contracts must be guaranteed, and you have the right to both cancel within 30 days at a full refund and re-sell interment rights (at least to the cemetery), among other points.
Preplanning a funeral can bring a lot of relief to a loved one, as they will know that the funeral is exactly how you would have wanted it. These changes will make it easier to be sure that your plan will go into place the way you want it.
