Can I Say Whether I Want Burial or Cremation in My Will?

The legal right to decide how a body is disposed of rests with the deceased's personal representatives, meaning the executors named in a valid will, or the administrators appointed under the intestacy rules if there is no will. This is a well-established legal position, and it means your stated preference, however clearly written, is not something your executors are legally obliged to follow.

In practice, disputes over this are relatively rare, and most executors and families make a genuine effort to honour a deceased person's known wishes wherever possible. The legal point matters mainly in the rare cases of family disagreement, where knowing your clearly recorded preference can be a persuasive, though not decisive, factor.

You can include a simple statement in your will, such as 'it is my wish to be cremated' or 'I would like to be buried in the family plot at [named cemetery]'. This is straightforward to include and does no harm, but should not be relied on as your only way of communicating this wish, for the reasons explained below.

If you have a preference about the type of service alongside burial or cremation, such as a religious or non-religious ceremony, or a wish for the funeral to be simple and low-cost rather than elaborate, this can also be recorded, whether in the will itself or in an accompanying letter of wishes.

Funerals generally need to be arranged within a couple of weeks of death, while a will is frequently not located or formally read until later, particularly if it is held by a solicitor, in a safe deposit, or simply not looked for immediately by grieving family members. This means a preference recorded only in the will risks not being seen until well after the funeral has already taken place.

This is one of the clearest reasons to treat the will as a backup record of your wishes, rather than the primary way you communicate them. The people actually organising your funeral need to know your preference before they need to make that decision, not afterwards.

The most reliable approach is to tell your named executor, and ideally close family members, your preference directly, in conversation, while you are alive. This means the people who will actually be arranging things know what you wanted from the outset, without needing to wait for any document to be found.

Alongside this, a short, clearly labelled note kept somewhere accessible, such as with important papers at home, or given directly to family, stating your preference and explaining any reasoning, such as religious belief, environmental considerations, or wanting to be buried alongside a particular family member, is far more likely to be seen and acted on in time than the will document itself.

If you have a preference for burial in a specific plot, particularly a family plot, check in advance whether space is actually available and what needs to be done, since burial plots can be limited, need to be purchased in advance in some cemeteries, and family plots have space and ownership rules that vary between local authorities and private cemeteries.

If cost or simplicity matters to you, saying so explicitly, rather than just choosing burial or cremation, gives your executors more useful guidance, since burial is generally more expensive than cremation, and elaborate services cost more than simple ones, regardless of which method is chosen.