Client's adult daughter died after overdosing and as her father and her next of kin, he made claim for funeral expenses. Refused on grounds that she had partner for benefit purposes. Deceased and partner had an extremely turbulent relationship and there are ongoing investigations into why the partner failed to contact the emergency services for some two hours after she took the tablets. He also refused to accept responsibility for funeral. I am loooking at whether I can argue they were 'estranged' even though considered as LTAHW. However my applic for review has been rejected.

My client arranged the funeral and now has the bill but DWP say no entitlement. Has anyone got any ideas or am I stuck with advising the family of the deceased they should try and persuade the partner to claim even though they are not on speaking terms. I can't find a way around it.
Thanks
Sue

The only way you will be able to get round this will be to succesfully argue that at the time of her death she was no longer LTAHW with her former partner...very difficult indeed.

Reg 7 of the Social Fund Maternity and FuneralExpenses regs is pretty rigid, where the deceased has a (surviving) partner, only that person can count as the responsible person for the purposes of a funeral payment.

hi sue.. this is almost word for word a case i'm representing in a couple of weeks. did you have any success with it? i am really struggling to find any caselaw in my clients favour and would appreciate any help

Sorry to be the bearer of bad news Wolfey but I had to give it up as a bad job. Much as I hate to concede defeat I had no choice as there wasn't sufficient benefit for continuing under LSC funding. Client then went to local CAB who told him they were very optimistic of appeal being upheld so I thought they must know something I didn't. It was dismissed though.

just doing some updates.. we did argue estrangement to the tribunal and the argument was, thankfuly, accepted, but i must admit there were very unusual circumstances in this case which contributed to their decision. thanks for your help

bloomin eck wolfey that was some time ago.
Well done at appeal though