Cemeteries

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It has been three years since we last posted about those states that have passed laws allowing cemetery trusts to take a unitrust election.  Since then, Arizona, California and Indiana have joined the list.  The movement towards fixed care fund distributions has not caught on as quickly as some thought when the concept was introduced…

In contrast to Missouri’s Chapter 214, most states’ cemetery laws do not exempt all cemetery associations from care fund requirements.  We do find that some states exempt small non-profit cemeteries (typically based on acreage).  Some states limit non-profit cemetery exemptions to grandfathered situations (a cemetery established prior to 1940).  These small cemetery associations are more…

When Missouri’s endowed care law was passed in 1994, all cemeteries were required to register with the Office of Endowed Care Cemeteries.  Cemeteries can seek licensing as either an endowed care cemetery or a non-endowed cemetery, or the cemetery could claim it was exempt from Chapter 214 pursuant to the definition of “Cemetery” pursuant to…

A funeral home’s best efforts to comply with COVID-19 restrictions can be undermined when the body is delivered to the grave for burial.   While the funeral director has the authority to restrict attendance of a funeral service within his/her facilities, most funeral directors are powerless to restrict attendance at the gravesite.  When family and friends…

Missouri law, like most states’, restricts cemeteries to being either exclusively for human burials or for animal burials.   Accordingly, it has been illegal for Missouri cemeteries to honor a lot owner’s request to be buried with a pet.  However, legislation has been introduced that would authorize Missouri cemeteries for the burial of both humans and…

Fall is the time when many cemeteries host their most effective marketing program: voices from the past.

In conjunction with a local community theater, the cemetery will research their “residents” for interesting characters to portray.  The community theater actors will then bring those characters to life during a tour of the cemetery.   These tours generate…

The cemetery is not dying, it is evolving.

Since its creation in the 1830’s, America’s public cemetery has gone through three major evolutions.  When American was an agrarian society, we buried our dead in a small section of the family farm.  As towns grew into cities, the public cemetery was created out of necessity.  Located…

It would be my assumption that the majority of the country’s cemeteries do not maintain a trust for the maintenance and care of its graves.  While this may differ from state to state, most states’ perpetual care statutes exempt small family cemeteries, not for profit cemeteries, municipal cemeteries, county cemeteries and church cemeteries from their…

  • It is inevitable that a cemetery will run out of graves (and revenues) and eventually become the ward of taxpayers.
  • For cemeteries with ample inventory of graves, the public’s embrace of cremation translates to declining grave sales and the acceleration of the cemetery’s demise.

For several years, the media have been making these dire predictions…