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Planning For Your Final Arrangements
Planning For Your Final Arrangements
By: Shane M. McCrohan
When reviewing and updating your estate plan, it is important to make sure your wishes regarding the burial or cremation of your remains (“final arrangements”) are included in your planning documents to provide clear direction to your loved ones. Your loved ones could have vastly different opinions on your final arrangements which, if not resolved by them privately, can delay your final arrangements from being carried out and impose a considerable expense on your estate.
There are two methods recognized under New York statute to provide for your wishes regarding final arrangements. First, you can state your final arrangement wishes in your Will. Second, you can include these wishes in a document referred to by New York statute as the “Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains”. See Section 4201(3) of the New York Public Health Law. Attached is a sample of this document. In this document, you can also name the person you wish to handle your final arrangements (the “agent”) and indicate whether you have an existing agreement in place with a funeral home or cemetery for your burial or cremation and/or any memorial service. You should, however, consult with your attorney before completing and signing it. This document must be signed by you in front of two independent witnesses and by the person you are appointing as agent in order to be effective.
Regardless of the method chosen, you want to make sure that the appropriate person is the one in charge of your final arrangements. This person would be the one responsible for carrying out your final arrangements with the funeral home and/or cemetery. Section 4201(2) of the New York Public Health Law provides that, if no Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains is in place at the time of your death, the following persons, in the order listed, are eligible to be in charge of your final arrangements:
- Surviving spouse or domestic partner;
- Adult children;
- Parents;
- Adult siblings;
- Legal guardian;
- Adult heirs closest in relationship;
- Executor/administrator of estate;
- Close friend or relative reasonably familiar with your wishes; and
- Chief fiscal officer of county or public administrator.
If you are relying on your Will to provide for your final arrangements, it cannot effectively appoint someone to handle your final arrangements. In that case, the New York statute decides who handles these arrangements. You can provide for both (a) your final arrangements and (b) the appointment of someone to handle your final arrangements in the Appointment of Agent to Control Disposition of Remains.
If you would like additional information or assistance in completing the forms, please do not hesitate to contact me.
