Funeral Payment Refused Because My Brother Has a Job

If you paid for the funeral while on Universal Credit and your Funeral Expenses Payment was refused because your brother works, you have hit the rule that surprises people most: the DWP can look past you to another relative who is not on benefits and decide the cost should not have fallen on you at all. It feels backwards. You are the one who paid, you are the one on a low income, and yet somebody else's job is being used to turn you down. That is the close relative rule doing exactly what it was written to do, and it is allowed.

The logic behind it is that the state's help is meant to be a last resort. If there is a close relative of the person who died who is not on a qualifying benefit — a working sibling, in your case — the DWP can decide it was reasonable for them, rather than for you, to take responsibility for the funeral. The refusal is not a judgement that you did anything wrong. It is a judgement about who could afford it.

This page explains how the close relative rule is applied, why it is so hard to shift, the one argument that overturns it most often, and who is left holding the bill when it stands.

The two tests, not one

People assume the Funeral Expenses Payment turns on a single question — are you on a qualifying benefit? — and being on Universal Credit, Pension Credit, income-related ESA, income-based JSA, Income Support or Housing Benefit does clear the first hurdle. But there is a second test underneath it that catches people out, because it looks at other people entirely.

To qualify you must be the person who has accepted responsibility for the funeral and it must be reasonable for you, rather than someone else, to have done so. That word "reasonable" is where your brother's job enters. If there is a close relative of the person who died who is not on a qualifying benefit and who was not estranged, the rules treat them as the person who could reasonably be expected to bear the cost — and your claim can be refused even though you are the one who actually paid. The framework sits in the Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) Regulations 2005, which you can read on the legislation.gov.uk site.

This is the same machinery, differently described, as the older "closer relative" test that has always sat inside funeral help. We set out how it developed and why it survives in the closer relative rule that kills funeral grant claims.

Who counts as a close relative

The rule only bites if the person whose income is being weighed against yours is genuinely a close relative of the person who died. That category is defined, not left to a caseworker's instinct. It covers a partner, a parent, a son or daughter, and a brother or sister of the deceased, together with certain step-relationships and in-laws.

So a working cousin, a nephew, or a family friend does not trigger the rule, however comfortable they are — they are not close relatives in this sense. It is specifically the deceased's partner, parents, children and siblings whose benefit status can defeat your claim. In the classic version of this problem, you and the person whose job sank the claim are siblings of the same parent who died, or you are one of several children of the person who died and another child is in work.

Because it is about the deceased's relatives rather than yours, the rule can produce results that feel arbitrary. A daughter on Universal Credit can be refused because her employed brother exists, even if that brother had nothing to do with arranging anything and contributed not a penny.

There is a further sting worth understanding, because it explains why the refusal can feel so unjust. The rule does not test whether the working relative can actually afford a funeral. It does not look at their wages, their rent, their own debts or their willingness to help. It asks only whether a close relative exists who is not on a qualifying benefit and was not estranged. A brother on a modest wage who cannot realistically spare the money, and who has flatly refused to contribute, can still be enough to defeat your claim on paper. You cannot make him pay, and the DWP will not make him pay either — which is the trap. That is why the only productive line of attack is not affordability but contact and estrangement.

Why estrangement and contact are the crack in the rule

The rule is not quite as blunt as "a working relative always wins", and the exception is the part worth all your attention. The DWP is meant to weigh the nature and extent of your contact with the person who died against the other relative's. An estranged close relative is not supposed to count against you.

This matters enormously in practice, because it is the point on which refusals are overturned. If the working brother had not spoken to your mother in years, lived at the other end of the country and played no part in her life or her death, then he was estranged in substance even if not in name — and it was reasonable for you, the child who was actually there, to arrange the funeral. That is the argument that carries weight. Conversely, where the other relative was genuinely in the deceased's life, the rule tends to hold, which is why the angle of these cases is so specific: it lives or dies on contact, not on fairness in the abstract.

So when you challenge the decision, do not argue that the rule is unfair in general. Argue the facts of contact: who saw the person who died, who they turned to, who they lived near, who they named as their next of kin, and how little of that involved the relative whose job defeated the claim.

How to challenge the refusal

A refusal on the close relative rule is not the end of the road, and challenging it costs nothing. There are two stages, and the deadlines are short.

First, ask for a mandatory reconsideration within one month of the date on the decision letter. Put it in writing. Set out, relative by relative, the contact each close relative had with the person who died, and explain plainly why it was reasonable for you to take responsibility — because you were the one in their life, and the working relative was not. Attach anything that shows it: that you were named as next of kin, that you held the medical or care contacts, that you registered the death.

Second, if the reconsideration is refused, appeal to an independent tribunal — the First-tier Tribunal, which hears these cases separately from the DWP. Tribunals do overturn close relative refusals, but almost always on clear evidence of estrangement or a stark difference in contact, so the strength of your appeal is the strength of that evidence. If you have not yet claimed at all because a benefit decision of your own is still pending, do not wait for it — claim the funeral help now, as we explain in why to claim the funeral help even with a benefit decision pending, because the deadline will not pause for you.

Who is left to pay while it is refused

The hard reality behind an appeal is that the funeral bill does not wait for the tribunal. Whoever signed the funeral director's contract is personally liable for it now, and a refused payment does not change that. If you signed, the debt is yours until either the payment is won back or the estate settles it.

If the person who died left money, the funeral is one of the first things the estate pays, so you should be reimbursed from it — though that can be slow. It is also worth knowing that even a successful Funeral Expenses Payment is not a gift that stays with you: the DWP can reclaim it from the estate if there is anything in it, which is set out in how the DWP takes the funeral grant back from the estate. And if the person who died had a life insurance policy paid into their estate, it can reduce or wipe out the award before you even reach the close relative question, as covered in how a life policy can shrink the DWP funeral grant.

Put together, this is a scheme that can refuse you because a relative works, claw back what it does pay from any estate, and leave the person who signed carrying the balance in the meantime. That is exactly the exposure a modest, pre-funded policy is meant to remove: cover written to pay a set sum to whoever arranges the funeral pays out regardless of anyone's benefit status and outside the close relative rule entirely. It cannot promise to meet every cost and what it pays depends on the policy terms, but it keeps the bill off a grieving relative's own account. If you are thinking about your own arrangements after going through this, you can get life insurance quotes and have an FCA-authorised broker set it against your circumstances. For the wider picture of state help after a death, our guide to bereavement benefits and state support gathers it in one place.

Do not lose the deadline while you argue

One thing that can turn a winnable case into a lost one is the clock. The Funeral Expenses Payment must be claimed within a fixed window, and it is the six-month deadline measured from the funeral, not the death. A mandatory reconsideration and an appeal keep an existing claim alive, but they do not extend the original window for making one. So if you have not yet claimed because you assumed the close relative rule made it pointless, claim anyway and let the DWP make the decision you can then challenge — an unmade claim cannot be appealed, and the deadline will pass either way.

Scotland and Northern Ireland

The close relative rule described here is the DWP scheme that runs in England and Wales. Scotland is different. Funeral help there is the Funeral Support Payment, administered by Social Security Scotland under its own rules, and the way it handles another relative who could have paid is not identical to the DWP test — so a refusal in Scotland turns on that scheme's own guidance rather than on the regulations quoted above. If you were refused in Scotland, it is worth reading the Scottish criteria directly rather than assuming the position is the same.

In Northern Ireland the payment mirrors the Great Britain scheme and is administered by the Department for Communities, so the close relative rule applies there in much the same way, with the same reconsideration and appeal routes. Wherever you are, the winning point is the same one: evidence of who was actually in the life of the person who died.

Frequently asked questions

Why does my brother's job affect my claim?

The rules ask whether it is reasonable for you, rather than another close relative, to take responsibility for the funeral. Where there is a close relative of the deceased who is not receiving a qualifying benefit, the DWP can decide the cost should not fall on you at all. Being on Universal Credit clears one test, but this reasonableness test sits underneath it.

Which relatives count as close relatives?

A partner, parent, son, daughter, brother or sister of the person who died, and some step and in-law relationships. The DWP is also meant to weigh the nature and extent of your contact with the deceased against theirs, so an estranged relative does not always defeat a claim, even if they are working and not on benefits.

Can the refusal be challenged?

Yes. Ask for a mandatory reconsideration within a month of the decision, then appeal to a tribunal. The argument that succeeds most often is that the other relative was estranged, or had far less contact with the deceased than you did, so it was reasonable for you to arrange the funeral. Set out the contact each relative had, relative by relative.