In our third post on Missouri’s endowed care cemetery audits we look at the request for the cemetery’s legal documents. The current audit notice requests copies of the cemetery’s trust agreement, rules and regulations, contract forms, deed forms, brochures and any other materials making an endowed care representation. In essence, the audit is going to
chapter 214
Missouri Care Fund Audits: Following the Money
Our previous post discussed care fund audits and the tracking of a cemetery’s property sales and care fund liability. The next step of the audit process is following the money to the care fund trust (and the back from the trust to the cemetery). For these purposes, the Missouri audit notice requests trust statements from…
Missouri Care Fund Audits: Tracking IR Sales and Trust Deposits
Missouri is catching up on its auditing of licensed endowed care funds. Within the past couple of months, most of our Missouri endowed cemeteries received the attached notice requesting reports and documents for audit. In prior posts, we have suggested that the Office of Endowed Care Cemeteries (OECC) audit process should be revised. Our next…
Missouri Cemetery Associations and Preneed: So Many Obstacles
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…
Missouri’s Religious Cemeteries: a Preneed No Man’s Land
As suggested in our prior Cemetery Preneed Exemption post, Missouri’s endowed care cemetery law (Chapter 214.270 et seq) has a huge flaw when it comes to religious cemeteries: they are either all in or all out. Religious cemeteries often have good cause for seeking exemption from state endowed care laws. Our religious cemetery clients…
Finally a Missouri Cemetery Preneed Exemption: Sort of.
The Missouri State Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors recently promulgated a rule (20 CSR 2120-3.560) to exempt certain cemetery operators from preneed licensing with the State Board. The rule was a long time coming. We first wrote about preneed licensing confusion for Missouri cemeteries back in 2009 (Lost in the translation:…
Cemetery Marker Sales and the “Deferred Delivery Expense”
We don’t like to be reminded of our mortality. Cemetery operators face this issue with many marker and monument sales. An illness may lead a husband and wife to begin making plans, which often includes the purchase of a grave space and a marker. But, it is difficult for many individuals to view a marker…
Four Loaded Questions: Missouri Cemetery Preneed
Missouri cemeteries received a brief questionnaire last week from their primary regulator. The Office of Endowed Care Cemeteries (the OECC) has responsibility for enforcement of Chapter 214, the Missouri law that governs endowed care requirements and preneed sold by licensed cemeteries. The OECC would seem to be sizing up cemeteries as candidates for Chapter 214…
Missouri Cemetery Reform: New Year’s Resolutions
In a move to remain autonomous from the funeral industry and its oversight, the Missouri cemetery industry met with its regulator during the summer of 2008 to discuss reform legislation. Disagreements precluded effective legislation from being passed in 2009, but extensive changes was passed in 2010, and became effective on August 28, 2010. Now, the Missouri…
Missouri Cemetery Preneed Law: zero to eighty while blindfolded
The fear of SB1 drove the Missouri cemetery industry to push for Chapter 214 legislation in 2009, only to have the wheels come off at the stroke of midnight last May. While legislation was passed, the original bill was gutted, and the resulting changes were incoherent and confusing. It was no surprise that the industry…