General information, not legal or financial advice. Each state sets its own rules for estates. For your own situation, your state’s public trustee or legal aid service is the place to ask; the pages for every state are linked on the home page, and Moneysmart covers paying for a funeral in plain words.
South Australia’s Law Handbook takes the same line: ordering the funeral from the funeral director makes you responsible for paying, while the money normally comes out of the estate. The rest of this page follows the bill from the day it is signed to the day it is settled, then gives each state’s own words.
How the bill moves
Someone arranges the funeral
In NSW the closest relative usually organises the service, and the NSW Government suggests legal advice if people disagree over who should. Where there is a will, the executor often has the say: in Legal Aid WA’s account, the executor (or, without a will, the personal representative) normally decides the arrangements, though not cremation where the person left written instructions against it or, with no such instructions, where the spouse, de facto partner or senior next of kin opposes it.
The person who orders it is responsible for the bill
This is the point both Legal Aid NSW and South Australia’s Law Handbook make plainly. In South Australia the invoice is the responsibility of whoever organised the funeral, usually the executor. NSW’s guide for executors frames it as part of the job: the executor arranges and pays for the funeral and the costs that go with it, such as a headstone or plaque.
The bank may pay it, or pay it back, before probate
The Law Handbook notes that some banks will pay the funeral straight from the account once they hold the tax invoice; where a bank won’t, the executor may have to pay first. How banks handle this is summarised in Paying from the bank account.
The estate repays a reasonable funeral first
South Australia’s handbook ranks the estate’s bills: the funeral first, then legal (testamentary) costs, then obligations under statute such as tax, then everything else. The ranking stays the same when the debts outweigh the assets, and creditors wait until reasonable funeral expenses are paid, so an executor who paid a reasonable funeral out of pocket is repaid before them.
Plans the person made may cover some of it
Legal Aid NSW points to funeral insurance, a funeral bond or life insurance as things that may cover the cost. Legal Aid WA adds a funeral paid for in advance, and health, sickness, accident or life policies that might help. Super can help too, though usually later: see Super and funeral costs.
What each state’s own pages say
Each line below comes from that state’s own public trustee, court, legal aid or government page. A rule from one state is not a rule in the next.
- New South Wales
Legal Aid NSW: whoever arranges the funeral is legally liable for it, and the estate pays where it can. The NSW Government’s list of ways to pay includes money released by a bank or other financial institution, and the estate itself.
- Victoria
Victoria Legal Aid lists arranging the funeral among the things an executor may have to do. State Trustees includes the funeral among the costs an executor has to settle, alongside tax, administration fees and out-of-pocket expenses.
- Queensland
The Public Trustee of Queensland puts the debts, the funeral and the final tax return ahead of handing anything to beneficiaries.
- Western Australia
Legal Aid WA: the funeral arrangements are normally the executor’s call (or the personal representative’s, where there is no will), guided where practical by what they knew the person wanted. They cannot choose cremation where the person left written instructions against it or, with no such instructions, where the spouse, de facto partner or senior next of kin opposes it.
- South Australia
The Law Handbook ranks the funeral first among the estate’s bills. A will can say which part of the estate pays for it; otherwise it usually comes from the residue, the part not left to anyone in particular.
- Tasmania
The Supreme Court of Tasmania counts the funeral among the necessary costs an estate pays, between collecting the assets and passing the estate on.
- Australian Capital Territory
The Public Trustee and Guardian’s factsheet notes that the executor often organises the funeral, and lists the funeral among the estate’s bills along with creditors, tax and administration costs.
- Northern Territory
The NT Government’s worked case of a small estate has the wife organising her husband’s funeral and paying for it from his bank account.
If you are the one signing
Keep the funeral account and the receipt. They are on the NSW Trustee and Guardian’s list of documents an estate needs, under liabilities: “funeral account and receipt (if it has been paid)”. A bank that has signed up to the Banking Code of Practice will want to see one of them before it releases money for the funeral.
If family can’t agree where someone should be buried, Legal Aid WA suggests negotiation or mediation first, and legal advice before going to court.