The BBC has reported that the cost of public health funerals, also known as paupers’ funerals, has risen by almost 30% to £1.7m in the past four years. The number of these funerals taking place has also risen by 11% over the same period.

Following sustained and increasingly vocal lobbying from customers and consumer groups, a number of leading UK banks have increased the amount of money that can be released from deceased customer accounts to their grieving families without first having to apply for probate, This Is Money reports.

The new leader of the Labour party, Jeremy Corbyn, has called for significant changes to be made to Inheritance Tax (IHT) laws, arguing that regulations should be graded to make the process fairer.

“If I am an executor to my father’s estate, and the shares have fallen 18pc since his death, will I have to pay inheritance on the value at his death, even though I will be selling them for far less?”

As part of Remember a Charity in your Will Week, a group of six pensioners decided to take to the skies to re-sign their Wills before sky diving from 10,000 feet. The stunt was just one of the activities to mark the annual awareness week which took place between 7-13 September and is designed to help the charity sector by encouraging more people to leave a gift to a good cause in their legacy.

The subject of inheritance has been in the news a fair bit recently, with some parents choosing to spend their savings rather than pass them down to their children or grandchildren. With 35% of Britons relying on an inheritance to provide them with a stable financial future, and 20% stating that they require an inheritance to retire comfortably, there is the potential for an increasing number of complications and disputes to arise.

The way in which we ‘consume’ services has changed considerably in the last decade or so. Many retail experts confidently argue that our expectations of service providers are now at an all-time high, with customers demanding access to a wide range of professionally delivered services every time they make a purchase. Does this theory apply to helping bereaved families as well?

With an ever increasing amount of our lives spent and documented online, it is perhaps unsurprising that many companies now offer services that allow you to manage your digital assets, even after you have died. This can include everything from a service that saves all of your passwords in one place, to a system that will send messages to your loved ones after you have passed away.

Kings Court Trust firmly believes in the benefits of having a professional help draft a Will to ensure that everybody’s final wishes are made clear and carried out accurately. Drafting a Will and carefully considering what is to happen to our finances is not the most cheery of topics, but one that should be taken very seriously.