Paying funeral costs before probate

Last reviewed 18 August 2026

The funeral will not wait upon the courts, and the law does not ask it to: the one bill an estate can usually meet before a grant is the cost of the burial itself.

Banks will usually pay the funeral

Most banks and building societies will release money from the deceased’s frozen account to pay the funeral, even above their usual threshold and before any grant of probate — provided the payment goes directly to the funeral director against an invoice, not to a relative. This is a long-standing courtesy, and it covers the funeral director’s bill and often related costs such as the death certificate.

How to arrange it

Send the bank the funeral director’s invoice and a death certificate, and ask it to settle the bill from the account. If funds are short, the estate can reclaim reasonable funeral costs as a first-ranking debt, and there is public help — a Funeral Expenses Payment — for those on qualifying benefits.

Sources. Bank bereavement policies (funeral payment to funeral director pre-grant); GOV.UK, Funeral Expenses Payment; order of estate debts.