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The FTC Funeral Rule — 7 Rights Every Georgia Family Has (and Funeral Homes Hope You Don't Know)

By Austin Worthington, Fairwell founder · Updated 2026-07-18

Since 1984, a federal regulation called the Funeral Rule has governed every funeral provider in the United States. It exists because the FTC found exactly what you'd expect: bereaved buyers, opaque prices, bundled packages, and pressure tactics. Here are your seven rights, and how to actually use them.

1. Prices over the phone — no name, no visit

Call any funeral home and ask what they charge for direct cremation. They must tell you. They cannot require an in-person meeting, and you don't have to identify yourself. If a funeral home dodges phone pricing, that is both illegal and diagnostic.

2. The General Price List (GPL), in writing, to keep

Walk into any funeral home and ask about arrangements — they must hand you an itemized GPL you can take home. This is the document our entire price database is built on. A provider's GPL is the ground truth; advertised "packages" are marketing on top of it.

3. Itemized choice — no forced packages

You may buy goods and services individually. A funeral home can offer packages, but it cannot make you take one. The only unavoidable line item is the "basic services fee" — which in Atlanta ranges from about $1,920 (Darby, Canton) to $7,190 (H.M. Patterson Spring Hill). Yes, the unavoidable fee varies by more than $5,000 across the metro.

4. Bring your own casket or urn — no handling fee

Buy a casket from a warehouse retailer or online for a fraction of showroom price, and the funeral home must accept it and may not charge you for using it. Casket markup is historically where funeral margins lived; this right is the antidote.

5. No embalming required by law

Georgia law does not require embalming — for burial or cremation. The funeral home must tell you this in writing. Refrigeration is a lawful, cheaper alternative. Embalming becomes practically necessary only for a public viewing with an open casket.

6. Written statement before you pay

Before you sign, you get an itemized statement of everything selected, every price, and every third-party ("cash advance") fee — cemetery, flowers, clergy, death certificates. Read the cash-advance lines; the Rule requires disclosure if the funeral home adds a markup to them.

7. Declining a vault — mostly

No Georgia law requires a burial vault. Private cemeteries may require a liner or vault as policy (most Atlanta ones do), but the funeral home must disclose that it's cemetery policy, not law — and you can buy the vault elsewhere too.

Using your rights without becoming a litigator

The Rule works, but only if someone does the comparison work — calling providers, collecting GPLs, spotting the outliers. That's the part grieving families skip, and it's the part Fairwell does for you, free. We already hold the GPL data for 60+ metro providers; we verify current numbers by phone and negotiate below them.

If a provider violates these rights, report it: FTC at reportfraud.ftc.gov, and the Georgia Board of Funeral Service.