Authorization for Final Disposition: What Happens to Your Body After You Pass?

February 29, 2016

When preparing or conducting a thorough review of your estate plan, it may be pertinent to discuss your need for an Authorization for Final Disposition. Such an authorization will help ensure that your funeral wishes will be followed and that the final disposition of your body will proceed according to your plan.

Admittedly, ensuring funeral arrangements and disposal of the body is not a significant issue or concern for most people. However, for some individuals, their personal situations makes it necessary to specify who will be in charge of funeral arrangements and final disposition. Typically, such situations arise when the people authorized by Wisconsin statute have conflicts with other loved ones or are no longer close to the deceased.

A Last Will and Testament is Not the Place to Set Forth Your Funeral Desires

As estate planning attorneys, the lawyers at Wokwicz Law Offices regularly come across pre-existing Wills directing and appointing the decedent’s personal representative to decide funeral arrangements. As a best practice, a Will is not the ideal place to set forth your funeral arrangements. First, Wills are seldom located and looked at in the days immediately following death and are often not reviewed until after the funeral arrangements have been completed. Second, a Last Will and Testament may not control who will make decisions regarding your funeral, since it is more likely that Wisconsin Chapter 154 will control who is in charge.

Authorization for Final Disposition Defined

At it’s simplest, the Authorization for Final Dispositions is a document set forth in the Wisconsin Statutes allowing Wisconsin residents to name who will be in control of their funeral arrangements and body disposition. In addition, it allows for setting forth instructions relating to where the funeral should be held, where burial or cremation should take place or remains should be interned. The Authorization document can also set forth religious instructions, arrangements for viewings and other matters relating to final body disposition.

Many of our client’s who desire to be cremated, set forth this desire in an Authorization document to make the funeral process easier on loved ones. Others also set forth funeral desires setting forth that they want an inexpensive funeral or no funeral services at all. Finally, many of our clients set forth any religious observances that they desire or other special instructions.

Wisconsin’s Default Law: Order of Who Will Be in Charge of Your Funeral Arrangements

Wisconsin has a newer law under Chapter 154 to determine, by default, who will be in charge of the disposition of your body after you pass away, unless you have specified otherwise in a valid Authorization for Final Disposition document.

Without a valid Authorization for Final Disposition document in place, in Wisconsin the following people, in order, will be in charge of your funeral arrangements and the disposition of your body:

1. Your surviving spouse.
2. Your surviving child, or if more than one the majority of your surviving children except that fewer than a majority may control if some children are unavailable and the children use reasonable efforts to contact all other surviving children as long as there is no knowledge that the unavailable surviving children oppose the majority of available children’s intended final disposition. This applies to child or children who are over the age of 18.
3. Your surviving parent(s) or one surviving parent if the other parent is unavailable, with similar requirements with respect to making reasonable efforts to locate an unavailable living parent by the available parent similar to unavailable children requirements set forth at item 2 above.
4. Your surviving siblings, unless there is more than one, in which case it will be majority with similar requirements for unavailable siblings set forth for children set forth at item 2 above.
5. Your more distant relatives as set forth in Wisconsin law [Wis. Stats. 990.001(16)].
6. The guardian of your “person” if you have one legally appointed before death.
7. An individual other than anyone specified above who will attest in writing to acting in good faith, along with a number of other requirements.

As with any law, there are a number of exceptions to the above list of persons who will be in charge of your funeral and final disposition. Without going into all of the exceptions, one such exception is if you have provided for body part donation through a valid unrevoked anatomical gift. In that instance, your wishes will still be followed, such as in your Power of Attorney for Health Care.

Do You Need an Authorization for Final Disposition?

If you desire to be cremated, we suggest that you have an Authorization form setting forth this desire and appointing an agent to sign for you at the funeral home, thereby making the cremation authorization process easier.

In cases where there is a second marriage and a dispute may arise between the second spouse and children, or where the client is estranged from a spouse or children or other relatives, or where there is a belief that the persons who would be in charge by default will not follow a client’s wishes, it is important to complete an Authorization form. Without an Authorization in place, if there is a dispute amongst the authorized persons, the funeral home can refuse to accept remains, embalm the remains while waiting for a dispute to be settled, or apply a number of other remedies that are likely to make the funeral process a more drawn out and more expensive affair.

As part of the estate planning process, we will also explore if an Authorization form is needed or helpful based upon your circumstances. In general, if we are completing other estate planning documents, such as a Will, Trust and Durable Power of Attorney, we do not charge an additional fee to complete an Authorization for Final Disposition form. Contact us your estate planning needs on 262-658-2181 or info@wokwicz.com.