Trust Centre : Our Terms of Business, Policies and Procedures

Our Contractual Terms of Business

These are the termsand conditions on which Amanda-Louise Lady Funeral Director Services (we, us orour) supply goods and or services to you. We are independent funeral directors,undertakers, and we provide a range of professional funeral services andrelated goods. The business is owned by Amanda-Louise Knight as a sole traderwith HMRC. You can contact us at our registered address is 5a Blenheim Road, Minehead, Somerset, TA24 5PY telephone 07879220046 or email office@amandalouisefuneralservices.co.uk.

We aim to act in a professional manner and provide a courteous, sensitive, and dignified service to you. Our business has policies which we stand by, copies can be found on our website, or we can email them to you.

These terms tell you who we are, how we will provide goods and/or services to you, how you and we may change or end the contract, what to do if there is a problem and other important information. If you think that there is a mistake in these terms, please contact us to discuss. The t&cs below form a legally binding contract between the funeral director business and the client, once the funeral director has received notification to commence their services.

‍Terminology

In these Terms and Conditions, unless the context otherwise requires, the following expressions have the following meanings:

·       “BusinessDay” means any day other than a Saturday, Sunday or bank holiday

·       “Us”“we” means Amanda-Louise Lady Funeral Director Services

·       “Client(s)”is the person(s) who book our services. This typically is the person whoregisters the death of the person who has died. This person will be responsibleto settle our invoice of funeral costs

·       “Contract”means the contract for the provision of the Services between us and the client,and no other persons have any rights to enforce any terms or instruct us

·       “Disbursement”means a payment made to third parties on your behalf, including but not limitedto, minister and church fees, doctors’ fees, or regulatory fees; “Estimate or Quotation”means a written indication of the charges likely to be incurred forprofessional fees and Disbursements and may be subject to change “Finalaccount” means the total price payable for the Services

·       “Services”means the services which are to be provided by us to you.

·       “writingor written’ includes information provided in a letter, or in printed form orvia email

‍Professional Services

These include all arrangements in connection with the funeral, assistance and advice in matters relating to the funeral, attendance and services of our staff, attending to documentation, care of the deceased and use of our facilities (chapel of rest),provision of hearse and funeral director, and any other services we offer within our remit. For our packages it will show what is included.

‍Dates and Times

All dates and times provided on the estimate cannot be guaranteed until final bookings are made, paid for, and confirmed. Although we endeavour to provide a swift and efficient service for you, there may be cases, because of circumstances beyond our control, we are unable to fulfil our obligations to you on the date or time specified. If this is the case, we will attempt to contact you in advance and advise you of alternative arrangements.

‍Estimate and Expenses

Our estimate is an indication of the charges likely to be incurred on the basis of the information and details we know at the date of the estimate/quotation. While we make every effort to ensure the accuracy of the quotation, the charges are liable to alteration particularly where third parties change their rates or charges.

We may not be aware of third-party charges in advance of the funeral, however, we will obtain for you the best estimate of such charges on our written estimate. The actual amount of the charges will be detailed and shown in the final account. 

If you wish to amend your instructions, we will require this to be submitted to us in writing, however, we reserve the right to act on verbal instructions for changes in the absence of your written confirmation. If however works have already been carried out, or completed, we are happy to amend but we will need to charge for the services rendered before the changes the client asked for. 

We may need to make an extra charge in accordance with prices published in our current price list. We are currently not registered with VAT, however, should this change, we will add VAT onto our final where appropriate to do so.

‍Booking Us

To book or order our services will be subject to these terms and conditions, and the client books us on the understanding they have sufficient monies to pay the costs. A legally binding contract will commence between us and you upon you signing the Estimate, or in some circumstances we will accept your authorisation in writing or by email. 

The client will supply us with the green form (certificate for burial or cremation) or coroners form 6 within 7 days of the date you first instruct us to perform the services.

‍Payment Arrangements

Our website and any printed materials provide client with a full and detailed explanation of our services and guide to all costs, and are accurate at the time of uploading onto website and/or printing. We will provide you with the exact costs relating to your needs and wants.

In addition to our funeral director professional charges, there are disbursements (often known as third party fees/costs) which must be paid. For example, for cremation or cemetery fees and to doctors. Other disbursements for example are to professional ceremony leaders (ie ministers of religions, celebrants) or to newspapers, florists, printers, etc. We are happy to pay those disbursements on your behalf and then provide you with our one invoice itemising all the fees for your payment to us.

‍Below shows when payment of our funeral director professional fees are required, as well as any third party costs:-

For attended funerals - On booking with us, the cost of the cremation/church-cemetery disbursements will be required. All other costs will be required 3 days before the funeral takes place (unless otherwise agreed).

For unattended funerals then the full cost(s) are required on booking us – this includes our professional funeral director fees and any appropriate third party disbursement costs.

If you fail to pay us in full on the date agreed, we may reserve the right to charge you interest on all outstanding accounts

·       at 4% above our bank’s base rate

·       calculated on a daily basis fromthe date of our account until payment

·       compounded on the first day ofeach month and

·       before and after any judgement(unless a court orders otherwise)

·       recover the reasonable cost of taking legal action to make you pay

·       choose to stop providing the services until you pay us in full and/or

·       terminate the contract and raise an invoice for the charges for the services already carried out

‍

Payments are made to us via bank transfer, our bank details will be on our estimate, or cash. If by cheque, then those monies will need to be cleared before we book the crematorium/cemetery.

Failure to comply will result in us taking legal action to recover the debt and also recover all and any collection costs and charges subsequently incurred.

If you have problems affording or paying for the funeral, then please speak with us in the first instance. Please let us know if there are funds coming from an estate accounts, a solicitor is administering the estate or life insurance will be used to pay the balance. We reserve the right to charge an admin fee to process payments from a prepaid funeral plan, death policy, assisted funding for example, of £250.00.

If you have a funeral plan with a large corporate funeral provider, then this can be cashed in and pay for our independent funeral director services.

For those on low income or receive Government benefits, then the DWP (Department of Works & Pensions) may provide you with financial assistance to pay towards the cost of a funeral.

Where a double funeral is arranged (for the same day) only 50% of our professional fee will be charged for the second person

‍Indemnity

You are to indemnify us in full and hold us harmless from all expenses and liabilities we may incur(directly or indirectly including financing costs and including legal costs on a full indemnity basis) following any breach by you of any of your obligations under these terms.

This means that you are liable to us for losses we incur because you do not comply with these terms, for example we will charge you an administration fee where we receive a cheque from you which is subsequently not honoured or if we write to remind you that an account is overdue. If we instruct debt collection agents, we may also recover the fees we incur from you. Further details regarding these fees are available on request. We may claim those losses from you at any time and if we have to take legal action, we will ask the court to make you pay our legal costs.

‍CancellationNotice – Your Right to Cancel

You have the right to cancel the contract if you wish in accordance with The Consumer Contracts(Information, Cancellation and Additional Charges) Regulations 2013 which may give you the right to terminate this agreement in the cooling off period of 14calendar days. If you wish the performance of this contract to commence within the cancellation period, you must sign the authority in the form handed to you.  If you exercise the right to cancel during the cooling off period, you will be required to pay termination fees as details below.

‍Termination –Our Rights to Cancel

We reserve the right to terminate our services if you fail to honour your obligations under these terms. We are under no obligation to accept your termination until we receive your instructions in writing. If you terminate your instructions, or if we decide to terminate our services, you will be involved for all third-party charges which we have paid or committed to. You will also have to pay our charges and expenses according to the scale set out below.

·       Termination within 2 days of due date for performing services – 100% of fees payable

·       Termination within 1 week of due date for performing services – 80% of fees payable

·       Termination within 2 weeks of duedate for performing services – 50% of fees payable

·       Termination up to 2 weeks of duedate for performing services – 30% of fees payable

Conduct

Our code of practicerequires that we provide a quality service in all aspects. If however you haveany questions or concerns about the service we provide to you, please raisethem in the first instance with our staff member you are working with. If thatdoes not resolve the problems to your satisfaction, then please contactAmanda-Louise directly (details above) who will do her upmost to resolve thematter.

You agree not topost on any media platform any negative comments about our services for aperiod of three years.

The client(s) is/are responsible for the conduct offuneral attendees and all other service providers.  Verbal or physical abusive language orbehaviour towards Amanda-Louise Funeral Services will not be tolerated in anyway and will lead to an immediate termination of their services.  In these circumstances, there will be norefunds whatsoever paid by the funeral director services.

Agreement

Your continuinginstructions will result in your continuing acceptance of these terms ofbusiness.  Any waiver or variation ofthese terms is binding in honour only unless:

·       Made in writing

·       States an intention to vary theseterms

Your instructionswill not create any right enforceable (by virtue of the contracts Rights ofThird Parties Act 1999) by any persons not identified as our client.

If any of theseterms are unenforceable as drafted:

·       It will not affect theenforceability of any other of these terms and

·       It would be enforceable ifamended, it will be treated as so amended

Nothing in theseterms restricts or limits our liability for death or personal injury. Englishlaw is applicable to any contract made under these terms. The English and Welshcourts have non-exclusive jurisdiction.

Health & Safety

In carry out our duties we will be responsible forour health and safety when we are in your own home or in other places carryingout any of our services. When we are in your own home, the client will protectour staffing of potentional health and safety risks.

We cannot be held liable for any accountability ifany family or friends wish to bear the coffin.

Third Party Failure & Liabilities

Whilst we may book a third-party supplier on yourbehalf, we cannot be held responsible for their work or any of their failures.However, we will do our upmost to take whatever action is appropriate torectify the situation.

Other failures or delay in performing ourobligations where that failure or delay results from any cause that is beyondour reasonable contract, such as but are not limited to, failure of anysub-contractor, power failure, internet service provider failure, industrialaction, civil unrest, fire, explosion, flood, storms, earthquakes, subsidence,acts of terrorism, acts of war, government action, epidemic or other naturaldisaster, or any other event that is beyond our control.

In any situation to be deemed an emergency,particularly on the day of the funeral, we may undertake whatever action thatwe feel is appropriate without the need to consult the client beforehand.

If the information you provide to us is delayed,incomplete or otherwise incorrect, we will not be responsible for any delaycaused as a result. If additional work is required from us to correct orcompensate for a mistake made as a result of incomplete or otherwise incorrectinformation that you have provided, we may charge you a reasonable additionalsum for that work.

We will be responsible for any foreseeable los ordamage that you may suffer as a result of our breach of these terms andconditions or as a result of our negligence. Loss or damage is foreseeable ifit is an obvious consequence of our breach or negligence or if it is contemplatedby you and us when the agreement is created, Nothing in these terms andconditions seeks to exclude or limit our liability for death or personal injurycaused by our negligence (including that of our employees, agents orsub-contracts) or for fraud or fraudulent misrepresentation. Furthermore,nothing in these terms and conditions shall affect your statutory rights as aconsumer.

DataProtection

We will treat yourpersonal information (data) with care and confidentiality in line with the UKData Protection laws. To provide our services, we may need to pass such data tothird parties and those third parities who are performing some of the servicesfor you, may contact you directly. Under the General Data ProtectionRegulations, you have the right to assess all personal data we hold on you. Ifyou do not agree to this, then this may have a negative impact on how we canprovide our services to you. For further information please refer to ourPrivacy Policy.

Confidentiality/Consent

Our prices quoted in our estimate are confidentialto you. Therefore, and except as otherwise provided by law, the client herebyagrees to keep the pricing arrangement confidential for a period of no lessthan 3 years from the date of this agreement.

The client will not leave any negative remarks orcomments on any media format, without allowing us time of at least 30 days tosolve any issues that have arisen.

Intellectualownership/copyright

From time to time, we may use a photograph of acoffin or aspect of an event for our marketing purposes. The client agrees forus to do so, unless the client writes to us withdrawing their consent.

Should we write a celebrant funeralservice/ceremony, then that script will remain the ownership of us untilpayment has been received in full. Notwithstanding this, after payment, thecontent is under the ownership of us, and copyright – none of the content canbe used by anyone else.

Ranking

It is acknowledgedand agreed that the client(s) can elect to purchase 1) different tiers ofServices – this will give different levels of support generating differentvolume of hours supported and 2) different types of Services – listings arefeatured and accessible to client(s) on the website.

During busy times,our admin time and accessibility can reduce. It is common working practice towork on a priority need basis deemed appropriate by the service provider. Thisdoes not mean all our clients are not important or they are valued less.

Relationshipof the Parties

Nothing in thisT&Cs/Contract shall be deemed to create a partnership or joint venturebetween the parties.

Bearers

Bearing by family members or anyone other than thestaff at Amanda-Louise Funeral Services will only be permitted at the directionof the Funeral Director. We will not be held responsible for any mishap, loss,injury or damage should anyone other than our staff wish to pall bear or carryout any other function usually carried out by the Funeral Director staff.

Force Majeure

Amanda-LouiseFuneral Services shall not be liable for any delay or failure to perform any ofits obligations if the delay or failure results from events or circumstancesoutside its reasonable control, due to natural disasters and catastrophescreated by humans including but not limited to acts of God, pandemics,epidemics, strikes, lock outs, accidents, war, fire or failure of anycommunications, telecommunications or computer system, and Amanda-LouiseFuneral Services shall be entitled to a reasonable extension of itsobligations.

Other Important Terms

We may transfer (assign) our obligations and rights under theseterms and conditions (and under the Contract, as applicable) to a third party(for example, if we sell our business or due to poor health). Your rights underthese terms and conditions will not be affected and our obligations under theseterms and conditions will be transferred to the third party who will remainbound by them.

You may not transfer (assign) your obligations and rights underthese terms and conditions and under the contract without our express writtenpermission. Our contract is between you and us. It is not intended to benefitany other person or third party in any way and no such person or party will beentitled to enforce any provision of these terms and conditions.

Covid-19

We respectfully ask if you have close contact with someone who hastested positive for covid-19 or you’re experiencing symptoms of covid-19 youshould take a PCR test (at your cost) which gives a negative result beforevisiting our funeral home or asking us to visit you at home. Thank you for yourunderstanding.

In a lock down pandemic climate – As a modern funeral directors wecan allow for zoom streaming of funerals and receptions, allowing thoserestricted in attendance to still play a meaningful role in the ceremony.  We can alter routes to allow neighboursand friends to pay their respects as the cortege drives past, and can makearrangements to safely allow people to come in and decorate the coffin if theywish. We will always follow the guidelines set by the legislation.

Our Complaints Procedure

We hope that you have a positionexperience of working with us, but should the need arise, we have procedures inplace to ensure your concerns are heard and addressed.  Please contactus atfor the attention of Amanda-Louise Knight who will respond to you within 3working days.

Governing Lawand Jurisdiction

This Agreement formspart of a legal Contract which shall be governed by and construed in accordancewith the laws of England and the parties hereby submit to the exclusivejurisdiction of the English courts

Other Policies& Produces

As a reputableprofessional business, we are driven by quality policies, procedures wrappedaround our positive values and ethos. These can be found online at:

https://www.amandalouisefuneralservices.co.uk/policies/equalities-statement

https://www.amandalouisefuneralservices.co.uk/policies/accessibility-policy

https://www.amandalouisefuneralservices.co.uk/policies/donations-policy

https://www.amandalouisefuneralservices.co.uk/policies/code-of-ethics

https://www.amandalouisefuneralservices.co.uk/policies/privacy-policy

https://www.amandalouisefuneralservices.co.uk/pages/our-values

‍