1506. Cemetery lands.(a) Purchase of land; notice to cemetery board. No cemetery corporation, in purchasing real property hereafter, shall pay or agree to pay more than the fair and reasonable market value thereof. The terms of the purchase, including the price to be paid and the method of payment, shall be subject to notice and approval of the cemetery board. In determining the fair and reasonable market value, the cemetery board may take into consideration the method by which the purchase price is to be paid.
(b) Consent of local authorities. (1) No cemetery shall hereafter be located in any city or village without the consent of the local legislative body of such city, or the board of trustees of such village. (2) No cemetery shall hereafter be located in any town, outside of an incorporated village in Suffolk county, without the consent of the town board of such town.
(c) Cemeteries in Kings, Queens, Rockland, Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam and Erie counties. A cemetery corporation shall not take by deed, devise or otherwise any land in the counties of Kings, Queens, Rockland, Westchester, Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam or Erie for cemetery purposes, or set apart any ground therefor in any of such counties, unless the consent of the board of supervisors or legislative body thereof, or of the city council of the city of New York, in respect to Kings or Queens county, be first obtained. Such consent may be granted upon such conditions and under such regulations and restrictions as the public health and welfare may require. Notice of application for such consent shall be published, once a week for six weeks, in the newspapers designated to publish the session laws and in such other newspapers published in the county as such board or body may direct, stating the time when the application will be made, a brief description of the lands proposed to be acquired, their location and the area thereof. Any person interested therein may be heard on such presentation. If such consent is granted the corporation may take and hold the lands designated therein. The consent shall not authorize any one corporation to take or hold more than two hundred and fifty acres of land. Nothing contained in this subdivision shall prevent any religious corporation in existence on April fifteenth, eighteen hundred fifty-four, in any of said counties from using as heretofore any burial ground then belonging to it within such county. Such board or body, from time to time, may make such regulation as to burials in any cemetery in the county as the public health may require.
(d) Limitation on the acquisition of land by rural cemetery corporations. It shall not be lawful for any rural cemetery corporation hereafter to acquire or take by deed, devise or otherwise, any land in any county within the state of New York, having a population of between one hundred and seventy-five thousand and two hundred thousand, according to the federal census of nineteen hundred, or set apart any ground for cemetery purposes therein, where there has already been set apart in any such county, five hundred acres of land for rural cemetery purposes, and the consent of the board of supervisors of any such county shall not be granted where there has already been granted five hundred acres of land, or upwards, within such county, to rural cemetery corporations. But nothing herein contained shall affect any lawful consent or grant hitherto made by the board of supervisors of any such county.
(e) Limitations on the acquisition of land for cemetery purposes in certain counties. (1) It shall not be lawful for any corporation, association or person hereafter to set aside or use for cemetery purposes any lands in any county within the state erected on and after January first, eighteen hundred ninety, adjoining a city of the first class and having a population of between eighty thousand and eighty-five thousand according to the federal census of nineteen hundred ten; but nothing herein contained shall prevent cemetery corporations formed prior to January first, nineteen hundred seventeen, which own in such county a cemetery in which burials have been made prior to such date, from setting apart and using for burial purposes lands lying contiguous or adjacent to such cemetery which lands have been heretofore acquired by a recorded deed of conveyance made to such a cemetery corporation either for burial purposes, or for the purposes of the convenient transaction of its general business, which lands shall have been acquired with the consent of the board of supervisors; nor to prohibit the dedication or use of land within such county for a family cemetery as provided in subdivision (c) of section fourteen hundred one of this chapter.
(2) The provisions of this paragraph shall not operate to prevent any such cemetery corporation located in Nassau county from using for burial purposes contiguous or adjacent land acquired by it provided that such use shall be consented to by the Nassau county legislature.
(f) Conveyance by religious corporations or by trustees. A cemetery corporation may accept a conveyance of real property held by a religious corporation for burial purposes, or by trustees for such purposes if all such trustees living and residing in this state unite in the conveyance, subject to all trusts, restrictions and conditions upon the title or use. Lots previously sold and grants for burial purposes shall not be affected by any such conveyance; nor shall any grave, monument or other erection, or any remains, be disturbed or removed without the consent of the lot owner, or if there be no such owner, without the consent of the heirs of the persons whose remains are buried in such grave.
(g) Certain conveyances to cemetery corporations authorized. Upon approval of the cemetery board first having been obtained, a cemetery corporation which maintains and operates a cemetery may accept a conveyance of title to the fee of or to burial rights in lands within the confines of said cemetery and it shall be lawful for any cemetery or business corporation to make such conveyances. Lots previously sold and grants previously made for burial purposes shall not be affected by such conveyance. The cemetery corporation, in consideration of the conveyance to it of burial rights in lands within the confines of said cemetery, may, with the approval of the cemetery board, issue participating certificates of the kind and nature provided for in paragraph three of subdivision (e) of section fifteen hundred eleven of this article. In making its determination the cemetery board shall consider and may condition its approval on the purposes of this section.
(h) Acquisition of property by condemnation. If the certificate of incorporation or by-laws of a cemetery corporation do not exclude any person, on equal terms with other persons, from the privilege of purchasing a lot or of burial in its cemetery, such corporation may, from time to time, acquire by condemnation, exclusively for the purposes of a cemetery, not more than two hundred acres of land in the aggregate, forming one continuous tract, wholly or partly within the county in which its certificate of incorporation is filed or recorded, except as in this section otherwise provided as to the counties of Erie, Nassau, Suffolk, Putnam, Kings, Queens, Rockland and Westchester. A cemetery corporation may acquire by condemnation, exclusively for the purposes of a cemetery, any real property or any interest therein necessary to supply water for the uses of such cemetery, and the right to lay, relay, repair and maintain conduits and water pipes with connections and fixtures, in, through or over the lands of others and the right to intercept and divert the flow of waters from the lands of riparian owners, and from persons owning or interested in any waters. But no such cemetery corporation shall have power to take or use water from any of the canals of this state, or any canal reservoirs as feeders, or any streams which have been taken by the state for the purpose of supplying the canals with water. A cemetery corporation may acquire, otherwise than by condemnation, real property as aforesaid and additional real property, not exceeding in value two hundred thousand dollars, for the purposes of the convenient transactions of its business, no portion of which shall be used for the purposes of a cemetery.
(i) Sale or disposition of cemetery lands. (1) No cemetery corporation may sell or dispose of the fee of all or any part of its lands dedicated to cemetery use, unless it shall prove to the satisfaction of the supreme court in the district where any portion of the cemetery lands is located or the cemetery board, that either: (A) all bodies have been removed from each and every part of the cemetery, that all the lots in the entire cemetery have been reconveyed to the corporation and are not used for burial purposes, and that it has no debts and liabilities, or (B) the land to be sold or disposed of is not used or is not physically adaptable for burial purposes and that the sale or disposition will benefit the cemetery corporation and the owners of plots and graves in the cemetery, and (C) the sale or disposition is not to a funeral entity as defined in paragraph (c) of section fifteen hundred six-a of this article. (2) If the sale or disposition is made pursuant to subparagraph (A) of subdivision one of this paragraph, the cemetery shall satisfy the court or the cemetery board that it is in the public interest to dispose of such cemetery land in the manner proposed; that the subject land is not suitable for cemetery purposes or is no longer needed by the community for such cemetery uses or purposes; and that the subject land is being sold for its current market value. (3) If the sale or disposition of the land is made pursuant to subparagraph (B) of subdivision one of this paragraph, the court or cemetery board shall order that the consideration received by the cemetery corporation, less the necessary expenses incurred, shall be deposited into the permanent maintenance fund established by the cemetery corporation pursuant to paragraph (a) of section fifteen hundred seven of this article. (4) Notice of any application hereunder shall be given in addition to the cemetery board, to the holders of certificates of indebtedness and land shares of the cemetery corporation, to any person having informed the cemetery board by petition or notice of interest in the proceeding and to any person interested in the proceeding pursuant to section five hundred eleven of this chapter (Petition for leave of court).
(j) Conveyance by cemetery corporation to city or village. A cemetery corporation may convey and transfer its real property held for burial purposes, together with its other assets, to a city having a population of less than one million inhabitants in which such real property is located, or to a village, provided such real property is located within such village or wholly within three miles of the boundaries thereof, or to a town, in which such real property is located, if all the directors and trustees of such cemetery corporation living and residing in the state of New York unite in the conveyance and transfer. Such conveyance and transfer shall be subject to all agreements as to lots sold and all trusts, restrictions and conditions upon the title or use of such real property and assets. Lots previously sold and grants previously made for burial purposes shall not be affected by such conveyance, nor shall any grave, monument or other erection be disturbed or removed except in accordance with law. No such conveyance shall be effective unless and until the legislative body of such city, town or village shall by ordinance or resolution accept the same subject to the conditions and restrictions hereinabove imposed, which ordinance or resolution said legislative body is hereby authorized and empowered to adopt by a majority vote of such body. Upon such conveyance and transfer such property shall be and become a municipal cemetery of such city, town or village and such property and assets so conveyed and transferred shall be administered as any other municipal cemetery of such city, town or village and the said cemetery corporation shall be dissolved by the recording of such conveyance and transfer.
(k) Streets or highways not to be laid out through certain cemetery lands. So long as the lands of a rural cemetery corporation organized under the act entitled "An act authorizing the incorporation of rural cemetery associations," constituting chapter one hundred thirty-three of the laws of eighteen hundred forty-seven, and the acts amendatory thereof, shall remain dedicated to the purpose of a cemetery, no street, road, avenue or public thoroughfare shall be laid out through such cemetery, or any part of the lands held by such association for the purposes aforesaid, without the consent of the trustees of such association and the cemetery board.
(l) Exclusive right of cemetery corporation to provide annual care services. Notwithstanding any provision of this article to the contrary, it shall be the right of each cemetery corporation, at its option, to exclusively provide all annual care services to be performed for consideration on all or any part of its lands at rates to be reviewed by the cemetery board. In the event that the cemetery board determines that an excessive, unauthorized or improper charge has been made for such services or that the services have not been properly performed, he or she may direct the cemetery corporation to pay to the person from whom such charge was collected a sum equivalent to three times the excess as determined by the cemetery board, or in the case of work not properly performed, it may direct the cemetery corporation to perform the work properly. Every cemetery corporation that chooses to provide, on an exclusive basis, such annual care services shall include in any contract for the sale of any part of its lands the following notice, in at least ten point bold type:
Notice
The (name of cemetery corporation), pursuant to state law, provides annual care services on an exclusive basis. Therefore, the purchaser of the plot or lot being transferred by this agreement may not contract with any outside party for such annual care services. For purposes of this paragraph, the term "annual care" shall mean the maintenance of a lot, plot or part thereof, and may include care of lawns, trees, shrubs, monuments and markers within the plot. The provisions of this paragraph shall not be construed to prohibit a lot owner from placing, or arranging to place, floral or similar arrangements on such cemetery lots or plots.
Last modified: February 3, 2019