Embalmers Affidavit: Fill & Download for Free

It can be done. Over my 34 years as a Funeral Director, I saw it done once.It was for an extremely wealthy woman who had established a major art museum. The casket was made by the museum shop, normally responsible for crating priceless art objects for safe shipping. Their creation was totally austere and undecorated, but to my taste, very elegant in its simplicity. It was simply six flat sides made from furniture-grade plywood. I don't remember seeing any mechanical fasteners, but they could have been there. It's been 20 years! At any rate, they were well hidden. They may have been sunk and plugged, or perhaps the box was all built with joinery and glue. As this lady had Jewish heritage (she herself was Catholic), the use of no metal sounds likely. For handles, there were six heavy hemp rope bail handles.The design was very simple, but the execution was perfect, with outstanding craftsmanship.The men involved as pall bearers well tested the casket, loading it with about twice her weight (she was under 100 pounds) and carrying on their shoulders, looking for any signs of strain or weakness. There were none.My partner and I went to her home after she died. We took her body to the funeral home for embalming, then returned to her home. She was placed in her bed, just as we removed her. She lay in state all that day.We returned the next morning. The carpenters had delivered her casket, and we placed her in it and took her to church.Because of the thoroughness of the testing, and the evident quality of the work, plus the forethought into the required dimensions, etc., I did not have the slightest concern about the casket.And that is the problem for me. If the bottom falls out, or if a handle breaks off causing the pallbearers to drop the casket, or if the casket does not fit in the graveliner, or if it flexes under load so that the top does not fit correctly, the family may be traumatized, but at least they will know who to blame. But the other 100 to 1,000 people in attendance will blame me, the funeral director. We will have had the family sign an affidavit noting that we are in no way responsible for the casket, and releasing us from any liability. We had that form from the family I described.But the other attendees will not have signed that, and our reputation would take the hit. We cannot have a notification in the funeral program that "x, y, and z made this lovely casket, we at Jones Funeral Home are not responsible for it in any way" - and even if we did, some folks would still blame us.so I worry about that every time a casket was provided from outside the Funeral Home, whether handmade, or purchased commercially. I only had two problems, both with caskets purchased commercially - one was not measured properly, and would not fit into a standard burial vault. And one time I had a handle pull off while we were setting it up at the graveside.We did not discourage anyone from building their own casket, or using one from an outside source. Not even by telling of these experiences. There are certain legal liabilities to doing that.but I often worried about it.

My late husband donated his body to Humatarian Gifts when we lived in the Greater Philadelphia area. His remains were sent to the University of Pennsylvania Cancer Center in the hope that perhaps future doctors might discover how he lived 4 years after being diagnosed with Stage 4 pancreatic cancer. I received his ashes a year later.He was sent papers which included a questionnaire and an affidavit that he had to sign indicating that he was making this donation of his own accord and that he consented to cremation. It was very easy. A funeral director had to transport his remains to the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania immediately after death, since no embalming was performed.

Let’s imagine that you have two main liquid forms of deposit accounts, and that you trust at least one child or all of them.The archetypal form of a highly liquid deposit account that easily is used to afford a person with the ability to pay expenses is a checking account (i.e., demand deposit account). They’re offered everywhere (e.g., at retail banks, or even online), and usually they are free to open and keep open.Now, imagine you have $110,000 in funds you keep high liquid, and aside from any other types of investments, retirement in nature or otherwise.Put $10,000 into checking account A (DDA A), and put the remaining $100,000 into checking account B (DDA B). Surely you can get some sort of small, but nonzero, interest paid on the larger balance in DDA B, so you have an interest-bearing large DDA (i.e., DDA B).Next, you just have to understand the concept of joint ownership.If you are single, then you can be the only name listed as an owner of DDA B. If it’s your intention to pass this money own, equitably and in the same amounts, to your children upon your death, then you will just list your children as PAYABLE ON DEATH (-POD) on DDA B, which is where the majority of your liquid funds are held.If you have different plans (for instance, you want one child to get more than another, or other more complicated scenarios), you should just leave the account in your name, with no -PODs, and upon your death, the account will be frozen and proceed as part of your estate through probate, or through affidavits of heirship.Be careful, though. If you really want to specify special arrangements for what will happen with this DDA B money, then you need a will.—If you have an accident and don’t die, but you are unable to handle your business, you may find your children bickering over access to the ‘B’ DDA, which they can achieve by using a power of attorney (POA) form that you’ve signed, or they can petition a court to grant them such power.A banker is going to look to see, merely, that the child has a statutory durable POA, wherein he is listed as your agent; that the POA goes into effect immediately, regardless of your “future” disability; and, that the POA gives your agent powers to meddle with your finances and to do banking transactions with your accounts.THAT IS IT!The bank is not going to get caught up in any legal disputes, or act like an attorney; they’re just going to have a financial services representative look for those three things, and if they’re there, your money is controlled by someone else. If you don’t like what happens, it’s your own fault.This is why wills and statutory durable POAs are best drafted by an attorney prior to your illness. And, having no POA doesn’t mean somebody won’t get one, or a guardianship, over you and your funds.Okay. You said you were married, though. So, the ownership of DDA B with the $100,000 initial balance is going to be joint between your wife and you, with a title like “John or Jane Doe DDA B”.All the rest is the same.Now, why the $10,000 DDA A? — Well, that’s the one where you make the account jointly owned by you and your children; or, you, your wife, and your children. Technically, any of those people can withdraw that money at any time, but it’s not seen as a gift in the eyes of the IRS. Not immediately, at least.I arbitrarily chose the number $10,000 as some amount of money that you would want available, immediately, to your children in the case that you, or your wife and you, “go at the same time”. — Only you will know what that amount really should be, and if you have more assets than just $110,000 in cash in two demand deposit accounts, more thought will need to go into this.If you know that you don’t want your children to have to go through probate (i.e., that they will just fill out an affidavit of heirship and present your (or hers and your) death certificate(s), and you want all of your children, if they are more than one, to get the same amounts of money as seen from a percentage basis (i.e., 3 children = 33 1/3%, 33 1/3%, 33 1/3%), then you can make it even much easier and make them -POD on the account, and it’ll have the same effect. Presentation of death certificate(s) will have the effect of freezing the DDA B account, and each beneficiary (-POD) can come pick up his one-third of the account balance and at his or her convenience.But, have you (and your wife) made funeral arrangements? — If so, this is a great idea.Your children, who have amicable relationships, will use whatever is in DDA A to finish up incidental charges related to your deaths (e.g., medical bills, final utility bills, taxes), and whatever is left over, they can split among themselves on their own.The big account, though, will be split up by the bank, so if for some reason your children do not have absolutely amicable relationships, you (and your wife) can be certain that the vast majority of what cash you have saved for them will pass to them in the way and amounts you had intended while alive.One child could take the whole $10,000 and cheat his siblings, but that’s your only risk that what you had wanted to happen will not go as you’d planned.If you do not have pre-made funeral arrangements, and you’d intended for embalming, caskets, visitation, funeral services, graveside services, burial, etc. — then $10,000 is not going to cover it.You might as well imagine DDA A should have at least ($20,000 + $20,000 + $10,000 =) $50,000 in it. We assume $20,000 in funeral costs for you and your wife, share and share alike, and the same $10,000 worth of funding for incidentals. Then, that leaves just $60,000 in DDA B, which has the protections built in.In this case, if your children form less-than-amicable relationships, any one child could run off with $50,000 + still be eligible for his or her portion of the $60,000 in DDA B.If you have three or four kids, then you two could end with one kid having the vast majority of funds, and you two are going to have to share the same crematorium urn with no funeral services, unless someone else (or a group of them) decide(s) to pay out of their own pockets to have your original wishes come to fruition.Dissolution of an estate can be a very simple thing, using just bank accounts, if you have rather simple cash and cash-equivalents as assets and children who are trustworthy.Just make sure that you prepay for those things you really want, so that whatever account you make jointly owned among you, your wife, and your children contains the smallest amount of money as possible that, in all likelihood, will be enough to cover your final expenses.I’ve seen large estates (composed of hundreds of acres of land holdings, insurance policies, a home, multiple bank accounts full of cash) be administered by two amicable children through title transfers and -POD bank account setups, before the fact of the owner’s death, and a simple affidavit of heirship filled out after the fact.I’ve seen small estates go to probate (aka court).You have to take into account, not only if you and your wife die at the same time, but what happens if one of your children predeceases both you and your wife?What if that child is married, and per his will, all of what he has and has coming to him — goes to his spouse when he dies? → Then, you have a situation in which your assets flow to his spouse in equal proportion to your other children. Is that what you two wanted?If those are possibilities, then again, you need a will, or, potentially a trust.