PENNSYLVANIA LAW Funeral contracts not always binding

PHILADELPHIA (AP) -- When a customer told Berks County funeral home director Kevin Bean last year that he wanted to get back the money he had put down for a prearranged funeral and use it somewhere else, Bean said he didn't think he had to do that.
The money was in an irrevocable account and taking it out would break the contract, Bean said. He then took the matter to Commonwealth Court to get an answer and the court forwarded the question -- whether someone who prearranged a funeral at one place can take back their money and spend it at another funeral home -- to the State Board of Funeral Directors.
The board, a branch of the Department of State that regulates funeral homes, issued its ruling last week, saying consumers can take any funeral contract they make in advance and move it from one funeral home to another -- as long as the money is used for a funeral.
"It was a gray area until now," said Guy Read, a consultant with Pennsylvania Funeral Directors Association, which represents about 1,000 funeral homes across the state. "Now the association thinks it's been resolved."
While the board says the ruling makes the industry more consumer friendly, Bean says it violates contract law and will make it impossible to prearrange funerals.
Bean said the ruling does much more harm than good, making contracts meaningless and letting executors and next-of-kin alter the deceased's true wishes. If the decision stands, he said, he will no longer be able to guarantee advance contracts.