William Stalter is the founder of Stalter Legal Services and the Preneed Resource Company. Bill focuses his law practice on preneed and death care compliance, serving banks, funeral homes, crematories, and cemeteries. He has written multiple published articles
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Price Protection,UncategorizedIt only took 15 months, but the Missouri State Board finally approved a rule to clarify what fees a preneed seller may charge when offering a guaranteed price contract to consumers. Low investment returns from insurance and trusts forced many funeral homes to stop offering guaranteed price contracts to consumers. Funeral homes’ cost increases were… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Care Funds,CemeteriesEffective July 1st, the cemetery laws of Virginia and Georgia are each amended to authorize fixed distributions from cemetery perpetual care trusts. They join Florida, Tennessee, Michigan, Missouri and Iowa in embracing some form of the unitrust option for cemetery care fund distributions. The unitrust option is a dramatic departure from the net income distributions… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Care Funds,CemeteriesThe Missouri legislature has passed a bill to authorize county commissioners to diversify their cemetery trusts. Prior to the passage of House Bill No. 51 Missouri’s counties were restricted in how they could invest cemetery care funds. Essentially, a Missouri county could invest care funds only in government bonds. But, since the mortgage bond crisis of… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesEarlier this year, the dispute between a Missouri cemetery and an independent monument dealer made local news. The cemetery had given notice to several lot owners that memorial benches they had placed on graves were going to be removed. While the cemetery was permitting certain types of benches to remain, other benches proved difficult for… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Care Funds,Cemeteries,Compliance,InvestmentsThe July 25th Marketplace Morning Report on National Public Radio included a segment called Allan Sloan’s lessons on bond investments. Mr. Sloan is a business columnist for the Washington Post who recently wrote that the current Treasury bond market is “out of whack”, and poses a risker investment than the stock markets. Mr. Sloan wrote:… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cemeteries,Compliance,Guaranteed,Non-guaranteed,Preneed,PreplanningA local Kansas City television station recently ran a story about a consumer’s complaint that his preneed contract did not cover “surprise fees”. The consumer had purchased the preneed contract from a Kansas City funeral home/cemetery combo where he had also purchased a grave space. One fact regarding the preneed contract that jumped out to… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesPreneed planning often begins with the purchase of a cemetery plot or cremation niche. If that purchase includes a marker or monument, the cemetery will typically seek to deliver the marker so that it may avoid cost increases incurred with regard to granite and bronze. But, many of us do not like to be reminded… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cemeteries,Cemetery Development,Legislation,Preneed,Preneed Development,Trust FundedIn an unusual move for a death care regulator, the Federal Trade Commission weighed in on the preneed turf war that has erupted between Pennsylvania funeral directors and StoneMor Partners. At the request of the chairman for a Pennsylvania legislative committee, the FTC responded with a detailed letter warning against various bill proposals aimed at… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cemeteries,Fiduciary,ReportingTypically, the standard by which a cemetery is judged to be abandoned is whether the grass is getting cut. But for licensed cemeteries, some states’ laws may also include provisions to deem a cemetery abandoned when regulatory reports are not filed. Care fund reports are intended to inform the cemetery regulator whether the operator is… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Care Funds,LegislationLegislation was introduced this week in the Kansas Legislature, and one of the bill’s changes seeks to clarify how cemetery care fund requirements can be computed. We have found this a source of confusion for cemeteries and regulators in many states. Depending upon the type of interment right purchased, the care fund requirement is often… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Care Funds,CemeteriesThe International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association (ICCFA) made an old but persuasive argument to get the IRS to exempt cemetery care trusts from the Medicare tax that will fund ObamaCare. As discussed in a prior post, the IRS had initially proposed to apply the tax to both cemetery care trusts and preneed trusts. With… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Care Funds,Cemeteries A cemetery operator recently expressed his frustration with the trust officer of his care fund trust. An examination of the trust had cited the operator for inappropriate distributions from principal with regard to expense payments. We suggested to the operator that it is very common for trustees to set up care fund accounts with a… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesIn its past two newsletters, my local chapter of the Funeral Consumer Alliance has reported on the difficulties in finding cemeteries that permit natural burials. In the Spring newsletter, the FCA of Greater KC reported on how the Catholic Cemeteries of Northeast Kansas was reconsidering natural burials at one of its six cemeteries. In the… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesAs cemeteries struggle with harsh economic conditions, regulators are bound to look at their ‘problem cemeteries’ and weigh whether legal proceedings are necessary to preserve the care funds mandated by state law. To the extent such proceedings are premised in part on how capital gains are defined and whether distributions from capital gains are an… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesHere is proof that readership of newspapers is going down. The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel called a few weeks back about a Wisconsin legislative bill that sought investment freedom for cemetery trust funds. With the legislative battle that was waged a year ago in Wisconsin, we had expected the bill might represent a renewed effort to… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cemeteries,RecordkeepingA cemetery client once lamented that he was tired of being the last in line. He was alluding to the reality that when there is a death, families call the funeral home before the cemetery. As part of the final arrangements, the funeral home will often sell the family a vault and marker, and deprive… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Administration,Cemeteries,Funeral,PreneedFor obvious reasons, life insurance is the preneed funding choice for many funeral directors. One hundred percent trusting laws give proactive preneed organizations no choice but to use insurance funding. Insurance provides the commissions needed to finance marketing and a sales force, and, maybe as important, relieves the funeral home from preneed accounting and administration.… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cemeteries,PreneedAs alluded to in our prior post, the cemetery’s ability to deliver burial rights and merchandise prior to death complicates the preneed transaction. In a post, we labeled this the ‘bucket factor’ (Cemetery Preneed Oversight: the bucket factor). In addition to burial spaces, cemeteries can deliver markers, monuments, vases, urns, outer containers and vaults prior… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in Cemeteries,PreneedIt is no secret that the larger funeral home operators have more preneed options than the industry’s mom and pops. The large operators have the volume of business that will attract insurance companies and banks, and their program incentives and discounts. Economies of scale provide the larger operator preneed advantages when going ‘toe to toe’… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesThe Internet has provided consumer advocates a valuable platform for educating the public with ‘how to’ death care information. But, for the most part, that ‘how to’ information has been confined to the funeral half of the equation. A recent Mother Earth News article provided a detailed description of the issues faced by the author… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesIn relation to many of its peers, Springfield’s Oak Ridge Cemetery could be labeled progressive. Oak Ridge maintains both an endowed care trust and a preneed trust. In contrast, a substantial number of the country’s cemeteries have neither. The fact that Oak Ridge Cemetery is owned and operated by the City of Springfield, Illinois, makes… Continue Reading
By Bill Stalter on Posted in CemeteriesMortuary Management recently ran a short editorial criticizing cemeteries, stating “we can only conclude that cemeteries will, in the long run, be the losers”, and “it may be time for a reevaluation of standards and staunch principles of the past”. The editorial is nothing more than a handful of comments from anonymous funeral directors about… Continue Reading
