Trading standards assesses funeral profession

Milton Keynes Council Trading Standards has recently conducted a project with the funeral profession to ascertain whether businesses are compliant with consumer protection legislation, according to the Milton Keynes Citizen.

“In relation to disclosing business names, 50 per cent were compliant with the legislation,” it reported. Those that were not compliant had “failed to display either the registered name in relation to a limited company, or its business name and address in relation to an individual or partnership.”

In one instance, non-compliance was determined because the name displayed did not indicate that the business was owned by a large company, but instead gave the perception of being an independent funeral director.

“When questioned, one larger company stated that the independent name had been kept as a business name due to the high regard in which the original company had been held locally,” reported the website.

In relation to pricing, 90 per cent of the funeral directors were compliant with the legislation where applicable, however when it came to advising clients of their right to cancel the contract, if the contract was signed in the home, only 30 per cent were compliant with the legislation.

“All of the businesses that were non-compliant undertook to make changes to become compliant with the relevant legislation, and two have successfully applied to become trading standards approved on the Council’s Buy with Confidence scheme,” it added.