PA 18-87—SB 432

General Law Committee

AN ACT CONCERNING THE SALE OF ABANDONED OR UNUSED CEMETERY LOTS

SUMMARY: This act makes changes in the procedure that towns and mutual nonstock cemetery associations or corporations (“cemetery associations”) use to recover burial plots for which assessed charges remain unpaid (see BACKGROUND). The act's provisions apply only to plot contracts entered into on or after July 1, 2018.

The act reduces:

1. from 10 to one, the minimum number of years that assessments on a burial plot must remain unpaid before a cemetery association may sell the unused portion of such plot;

2. from one year to six months, the period lotholders and other benefiting parties have to resolve a delinquency after receiving notice of it; and

3. from three to one, the number of legal notices that a cemetery association must place in a newspaper if it cannot identify an individual to which to send notice.

Additionally, the act eliminates a requirement that cemetery associations reserve space for the lotholder's otherwise eligible surviving spouse if the association sells the unused portion of a plot subject to delinquent charges.

EFFECTIVE DATE: July 1, 2018, and applicable to contracts entered into on and after that date.

BACKGROUND

Sale of Abandoned Plots

Notice. By law, before a cemetery association can sell unused plots for which assessed charges are delinquent, it must first send notice, by registered or certified mail, to the lotholder and any known beneficiary. The notice must be sent to those individuals' last known addresses. If they cannot be identified, the cemetery association must publish notice in a local newspaper.

Proceeds. By law, sale proceeds must be used to reimburse the cemetery association for any past due charges and costs of sale. The balance must be placed in a perpetual care fund. The interest from the fund must be used to care for uncared-for lots in the cemetery.