We have a duty to ensure that funeral arrangements are made for any person who has died or been found dead in our area where no other suitable arrangements are being made. In these cases, we will look to recover all costs from the estate of the deceased person.

Where a person has died and relatives or friends have financial difficulty in organising a funeral, assistance may be available with a funeral payment from the Social Fund. If you want to make a claim for a funeral payment you can do so via www.gov.uk.

Each quarter, we publish the number of National Assistance funerals we have carried out. We also publish the number of cases which have been referred to the National Ultimus Haeres Unit (NUHU) which deals with property that 'falls to the Crown' when there is no beneficiary.

We do not release further details about deceased persons or the amount of their estates, as we consider this to be inconsistent with our obligation to respect the private and family life of the individual under the Human Rights Act 1998.

Year Number Referral to NUHU
2011 4 0
2012 5 0
2013 13 3
2014 12 5
2015 15 0
2016 7 0