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  S.B. No. 1630
 
 
 
 
AN ACT
  relating to cemeteries.
         BE IT ENACTED BY THE LEGISLATURE OF THE STATE OF TEXAS:
         SECTION 1.  Section 711.001, Health and Safety Code, is
  amended to read as follows:
         Sec. 711.001.  DEFINITIONS. In this chapter:
               (1)  "Abandoned cemetery" means a cemetery, regardless
  of whether it appears on a map or in deed records, that is not owned
  or operated by a cemetery organization, does not have another
  person legally responsible for its care, and is not maintained by
  any person.
               (2) [(1)]  "Burial park" means a tract of land that is
  used or intended to be used for interment in graves.
               (3) [(1-a)]  "Campus" means the area:
                     (A)  within the boundaries of one or more adjacent
  tracts, parcels, or lots under common ownership;
                     (B)  on which the principal church building and
  related structures and facilities of an organized religious society
  or sect are located; and
                     (C)  that may be subject to one or more easements
  for street, utility, or pipeline purposes.
               (4) [(2)]  "Cemetery" means a place that is used or
  intended to be used for interment, and includes a graveyard, burial
  park, mausoleum, or any other area containing one or more graves.
               (5) [(2-a)]  "Cemetery element" means a grave,
  memorial, crypt, mausoleum, columbarium, or other item that is
  associated with the cemetery, including a fence, road, curb, wall,
  path, gate, or bench and the lighting and landscaping.
               (6) [(2-b)]  "Cemetery broker" means a person who sells
  the exclusive right of sepulture for another person.  The term does
  not include a person who:
                     (A)  is an officer, agent, or employee of the
  cemetery organization in which the plot is located and who is exempt
  from registration under Subchapter C-1; or
                     (B)  originally purchased the exclusive right of
  sepulture for personal use.
               (7) [(3)]  "Cemetery organization" means:
                     (A)  an unincorporated association of plot owners
  not operated for profit that is authorized by its articles of
  association to conduct a business for cemetery purposes; or
                     (B)  a corporation, as defined by Section
  712.001(b)(3), that is authorized by its certificate of formation
  or its registration to conduct a business for cemetery purposes.
               (8) [(4)]  "Cemetery purpose" means a purpose
  necessary or incidental to establishing, maintaining, managing,
  operating, improving, or conducting a cemetery, interring remains,
  or caring for, preserving, and embellishing cemetery property.
               (9) [(5)]  "Columbarium" means a durable, fireproof
  structure, or a room or other space in a durable, fireproof
  structure, containing niches and used or intended to be used to
  contain cremated remains.
               (10) [(5-a)]  "Cremains receptacle" means a marker,
  boulder, bench, pedestal, pillar, or other aboveground vessel that
  contains niches for cremated remains.
               (11) [(6)]  "Cremated remains" or "cremains" means the
  bone fragments remaining after the cremation process, which may
  include the residue of any foreign materials that were cremated
  with the human remains.
               (12) [(7)]  "Cremation" means the irreversible process
  of reducing human remains to bone fragments through extreme heat
  and evaporation, which may include the processing or the
  pulverization of bone fragments.
               (13) [(8)]  "Crematory" means a structure containing a
  furnace used or intended to be used for the cremation of human
  remains.
               (14) [(9)]  "Crematory and columbarium" means a
  durable, fireproof structure containing both a crematory and
  columbarium.
               (15) [(10)]  "Crypt" means a chamber in a mausoleum of
  sufficient size to inter human remains.
               (16) [(11)]  "Directors" means the governing body of a
  cemetery organization.
               (17) [(12)]  "Entombment" means interment in a crypt.
               (18) [(13)]  "Funeral establishment" means a place of
  business used in the care and preparation for interment or
  transportation of human remains, or any place where one or more
  persons, either as sole owner, in copartnership, or through
  corporate status, are engaged or represent themselves to be engaged
  in the business of embalming or funeral directing.
               (19) [(14)]  "Grave" means a space of ground that
  contains interred human remains or is in a burial park and that is
  used or intended to be used for interment of human remains in the
  ground.
               (20) [(15)]  "Human remains" means the body of a
  decedent.
               (21) [(16)]  "Interment" means the permanent
  disposition of remains by entombment, burial, or placement in a
  niche.
               (22) [(17)]  "Interment right" means the right to inter
  the remains of one decedent in a plot.
               (23) [(18)]  "Inurnment" means the placement of
  cremated remains in an urn.
               (24) [(19)]  "Lawn crypt" means a subsurface
  receptacle installed in multiple units for ground burial of human
  remains.
               (25) [(20)]  "Mausoleum" means a durable, fireproof
  structure used or intended to be used for entombment.
               (26) [(20-a)]  "Memorial" means a headstone,
  tombstone, gravestone, monument, or other marker denoting a grave.
               (27) [(21)]  "Niche" means a space in a columbarium or
  cremains receptacle used or intended to be used for the placement of
  cremated remains in an urn or other container.
               (28) [(22)]  "Nonperpetual care cemetery" means a
  cemetery that is not a perpetual care cemetery.
               (29) [(23)]  "Perpetual care" or "endowment care"
  means the maintenance, repair, and care of all places in the
  cemetery.
               (30) [(24)]  "Perpetual care cemetery" or "endowment
  care cemetery" means a cemetery for the benefit of which a perpetual
  care trust fund is established as provided by Chapter 712.
               (31) [(25)]  "Plot" means space in a cemetery owned by
  an individual or organization that is used or intended to be used
  for interment, including a grave or adjoining graves, a crypt or
  adjoining crypts, a lawn crypt or adjoining lawn crypts, or a niche
  or adjoining niches.
               (32) [(26)]  "Plot owner" means a person:
                     (A)  in whose name a plot is listed in a cemetery
  organization's office as the owner of the exclusive right of
  sepulture; or
                     (B)  who holds, from a cemetery organization, a
  certificate of ownership or other instrument of conveyance of the
  exclusive right of sepulture in a particular plot in the
  organization's cemetery.
               (33) [(27)]  "Prepaid funeral contract" means a
  written contract providing for prearranged or prepaid funeral
  services or funeral merchandise.
               (34) [(28)]  "Remains" means either human remains or
  cremated remains.
               (35)  "Unidentified grave" means a grave that is not
  marked in a manner that provides the identity of the interment.
               (36)  "Unknown cemetery" means an abandoned cemetery
  evidenced by the presence of marked or unmarked graves that does not
  appear on a map or in deed records.
               (37)  "Unmarked grave" means the immediate area where
  one or more human interments are found that:
                     (A)  is not in a recognized and maintained
  cemetery;
                     (B)  is not owned or operated by a cemetery
  organization; 
                     (C)  is not marked by a tomb, monument,
  gravestone, or other structure or thing placed or designated as a
  memorial of the dead; or
                     (D)  is located on land designated as
  agricultural, timber, recreational, park, or scenic land under
  Chapter 23, Tax Code.
               (38)  "Unverified cemetery" means a location having
  some evidence of interment but in which the presence of one or more
  unmarked graves has not been verified by a person described by
  Section 711.0105(a) or by the Texas Historical Commission.
         SECTION 2.  Section 711.004, Health and Safety Code, is
  amended by adding Subsection (f-1) to read as follows:
         (f-1)  For unmarked graves contained within an abandoned,
  unknown, or unverified cemetery, a justice of the peace acting as
  coroner or medical examiner under Chapter 49, Code of Criminal
  Procedure, or a person described by Section 711.0105(a) may
  investigate or remove remains without written order of the state
  registrar or the state registrar's designee.
         SECTION 3.  The heading to Section 711.010, Health and
  Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:
         Sec. 711.010.  ABANDONED, UNKNOWN, OR UNVERIFIED
  [ABANDONED] CEMETERY.
         SECTION 4.  Section 711.010, Health and Safety Code, is
  amended by amending Subsections (a) and (b) and adding Subsection
  (d) to read as follows:
         (a)  The owner of property on which an unknown cemetery is
  discovered or on which an abandoned cemetery is located may not
  construct improvements on the property in a manner that would
  [further] disturb the cemetery until the human remains interred in
  the cemetery are removed under a written order issued by the state
  registrar or the state registrar's designee under Section
  711.004(f) and under an order of a district court as provided by
  this section, except as provided by Section 711.004(f-1).
         (b)  On petition of the owner of the property, a district
  court of the county in which an unknown cemetery is discovered or an
  abandoned cemetery is located may order the removal of any
  dedication for cemetery purposes that affects the property if the
  court finds that the removal of the dedication is in the public
  interest.  If a court orders the removal of a dedication of a
  cemetery and all human remains in that cemetery [on the property]
  have not previously been removed, the court shall order the removal
  of the human remains from the cemetery to a perpetual care cemetery
  or a municipal or county cemetery.
         (d)  The Texas Historical Commission, with consent of the
  landowner, may investigate a suspected but unverified cemetery or
  may delegate the investigation to a qualified person described by
  Section 711.0105(a).
         SECTION 5.  The heading to Section 711.011, Health and
  Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:
         Sec. 711.011.  FILING RECORD OF UNKNOWN OR ABANDONED 
  CEMETERY.
         SECTION 6.  Section 711.011(a), Health and Safety Code, is
  amended to read as follows:
         (a)  A person who discovers an unknown or abandoned cemetery
  shall file notice of the discovery of the cemetery with the county
  clerk of the county in which the cemetery is located and
  concurrently mail notice to the landowner on record in the county
  appraisal district not later than the 10th day after the date of the
  discovery. The notice must contain a legal description of the land
  on which the unknown or abandoned cemetery was found and describe
  the approximate location of the cemetery and the evidence of the
  cemetery that was discovered.
         SECTION 7.  Subchapter A, Chapter 711, Health and Safety
  Code, is amended by adding Section 711.0111 to read as follows:
         Sec. 711.0111.  NOTICE OF UNVERIFIED CEMETERY. (a)  A
  person who discovers an unverified cemetery shall file notice and
  evidence of the discovery with the Texas Historical Commission on a
  form provided by the Texas Historical Commission, and shall
  concurrently provide a copy of the notice to the landowner on record
  in the county appraisal district on whose land the unverified
  cemetery is located.
         (b)  The landowner described by Subsection (a) may send a
  response or comments to the Texas Historical Commission concerning
  the notice not later than the 30th day after the date the notice is
  filed.
         (c)  The Texas Historical Commission shall evaluate the
  notice of the unverified cemetery, the evidence submitted with the
  notice, and the response of the landowner, if any, and shall
  determine whether there is sufficient evidence of the existence of
  a cemetery.
         (d)  If the Texas Historical Commission determines
  sufficient evidence supports the existence of a cemetery, the Texas
  Historical Commission shall inform the landowner and may file
  notice of the existence of the cemetery under Section 711.011.
         (e)  If the Texas Historical Commission determines
  sufficient evidence supports a determination that a cemetery does
  not exist, the Texas Historical Commission shall notify the
  landowner on record in the appraisal district of its determination,
  amend the notice to include the commission's determination, and
  ensure any notice filed with a county clerk under Section 711.011 is
  corrected.
         SECTION 8.  Section 711.041, Health and Safety Code, is
  amended by adding Subsection (d) to read as follows:
         (d)  This section does not apply to an unverified cemetery.
         SECTION 9.  Section 712.0441(f-1), Health and Safety Code,
  is amended to read as follows:
         (f-1)  The commissioner may issue an order requiring
  restitution by a person if, after notice and opportunity for a
  hearing held in accordance with the procedures for a contested case
  hearing under Chapter 2001, Government Code, the commissioner finds
  that the corporation has not ordered memorials, as defined by
  Section 711.001 [711.001(20-a)], in compliance with the deadlines
  established by rules adopted under this chapter.
         SECTION 10.  This Act takes effect September 1, 2017.
 
 
 
 
 
  ______________________________ ______________________________
     President of the Senate Speaker of the House     
 
         I hereby certify that S.B. No. 1630 passed the Senate on
  May 4, 2017, by the following vote: Yeas 31, Nays 0; and that the
  Senate concurred in House amendment on May 16, 2017, by the
  following vote: Yeas 30, Nays 0.
 
 
  ______________________________
  Secretary of the Senate    
 
         I hereby certify that S.B. No. 1630 passed the House, with
  amendment, on May 11, 2017, by the following vote: Yeas 140,
  Nays 4, two present not voting.
 
 
  ______________________________
  Chief Clerk of the House   
 
 
 
  Approved:
 
  ______________________________ 
              Date
 
 
  ______________________________ 
            Governor