Title HSC — California Health & Safety Code

(a) The adoption of the minimum hazard threshold pursuant to subdivision (b) of Section 78765, the department’s development and publication of the list of sites pursuant to Section 78760, and the assignment of sites to a tier pursuant to Section 78770, including the classificatio…

Whenever human remains have been ordered removed under this chapter, and the cemetery authority has made and published notice of intention to remove such remains, the portions of the cemetery in which no interments have been made, and those portions from which all human remains h…

No order of any court shall be required prior to the making of any such sale, mortgage, or other encumbrance of such lands; but any sale of such cemetery lands made by any cemetery corporation or association controlled by a governing body shall be fairly conducted and the price p…

Petitions for confirmation of sales shall be made to the superior court of the county or city and county in which the lands are situated, and the clerk of the court shall fix a day for and give notice of hearing in accordance with the provisions of Section 1230 of the Probate Cod…

If prior to the adoption of an ordinance pursuant to this chapter any cemetery authority has in good faith entered into any agreement to sell or has granted any option to buy all or any portion of its cemetery lands for a price reasonable at the time the agreement to sell was mad…

After the removal of all human remains interred in any part or the whole of the cemetery lands, the cemetery authority may file for record in the office of the county recorder of the county or city and county in which the lands are situated a written declaration reciting that all…

With the approval of the governing body of the city or city and county in which the cemetery lands are situated, sufficient lands may be reserved from any cemetery lands from which the human remains have been removed to erect a mausoleum or columbarium for the reinterment of disi…

After all remains have been removed from a cemetery in accordance with Chapters 3 and 4, Part 2, Division VII of this code, the dedication may be removed from all or any part of such cemetery lands by an order and decree of the superior court of the county in which the property i…

Money payable or to become payable as the purchase price or on account of the purchase price of unused lands, or lands from which all remains have been removed is not subject to enforcement of a money judgment, but shall be used exclusively for any or all of the following purpose…

Whenever any cemetery corporation or association has declared for removal and has published notice of its intention to make removals under this chapter, it may employ any money in its treasury to defray the expense of removal, including: (a) The expense of purchasing or otherwise…

From the money remaining in the treasury of the cemetery corporation or association after completing the removal and reinterment of the remains from its cemetery lands and the payment of all incidental expenses, the cemetery corporation or association shall set aside an adequate …

After making provisions for an endowment care fund to provide for maintenance and care, the governing body of the cemetery corporation or association may use such portion of the funds then remaining as it may determine to be just and fair in reimbursing those who voluntarily and …

Any balance remaining in the fund may be used for such other purposes as the cemetery corporation or association may lawfully declare. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

Whenever any cemetery corporation or association having a governing body has caused the removal of remains from all or any portion of its cemetery and has funds in its treasury which are not required for other purposes, it may set aside, invest, use, and apply from such unexpende…

In lieu of itself investing, using or applying the funds for care or improvement, the cemetery corporation or association may transfer the funds to any other corporation under such conditions and regulations as in the judgment of the governing body will insure their application t…

Before any such transfer of funds is made, the cemetery corporation or association shall obtain an order authorizing the transfer from the superior court of the county where the cemetery or portion from which the remains were removed is situated. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)…

The order shall be obtained upon petition of the cemetery corporation or association, after such notice by publication as the court may direct, and any member or former plot owner may support or oppose the granting of the order by affidavit or otherwise. Before making the order, …

Whenever any cemetery authority owning or controlling cemetery lands from which remains are to be removed has acquired the possession or use of any cemetery for the purpose of providing a place for the reinterment of human remains removed under this chapter, new lands may be surv…

Plots, crypts, or niches may be sold to persons desiring to make reinterments. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

The governing body of any cemetery corporation or association may receive and accept as part or full consideration for the purchase price of new plots full or partial releases of rights in or to the whole or any part of the assets of the corporation or association other than the …

After the removal and reinterment of remains disinterred from any cemetery the cemetery authority shall cause to be erected upon or imbedded in any plot in which any remains are reinterred a suitable permanent marker identifying the remains. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

The cemetery authority shall prepare a complete map or plat describing and showing the location and subdivision into plots of the cemetery lands where remains are reinterred, or a plan of any mausoleum or columbarium in which such remains are interred; and there shall be attached…

The map or plan shall be kept on file in the office of the cemetery authority and shall at all times be open to inspection by the relatives or friends of deceased persons whose remains are reinterred therein. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

When any law or ordinance requires that the remains interred in any cemetery be removed and reinterred elsewhere, no county, town or political subdivision in which the reinterment of disinterred remains takes place, shall charge for any permit or levy a tax of any nature for the …

The heirs, relatives or friends of any decedent whose remains have been interred in any cemetery owned, governed or controlled by any religious corporation or by any church or religious society of any denomination or by any corporation sole administering temporalities of any reli…

If it appears to the board of supervisors of any county owning a county cemetery that: (a) It is necessary that the property be used for other purposes, and (b) The cemetery is located on a portion of the site of an existing county institution maintained for the relief of the ind…

Any resolution or declaration for abandonment adopted and made under the provisions of this article shall specify and declare that at any time after the expiration of 60 days after the first publication of the notice of declaration of intended abandonment and removal, the human r…

At any time before the date fixed for the removal of the remains by the county owning or controlling such cemetery land, any relative or friend of any person whose remains are interred in the cemetery may voluntarily remove the remains and reinter the same as he may desire.

After the publication and mailing of the notice mentioned in Section 8001 of this code and after the expiration of the 60 days specified in the notice, the county shall have the power to cause the removal of all human remains interred in the cemetery about to be abandoned and to …

Whenever the remains of any person shall be removed from any abandoned cemetery by the county owning such abandoned cemetery, such remains shall be transported and reinterred in a separate and suitable receptacle. After the removal and reinterment of human bodies disinterred from…

After the removal of all human remains the property may be used, managed and controlled by the board of supervisors as other county property.

All plots conveyed to individuals are presumed to be the sole and separate property of the owner named in the instrument of conveyance.

The spouse of an owner of any plot containing more than one interment space has a vested right of interment of his remains in the plot and any person thereafter becoming the spouse of the owner has a vested right of interment of his remains in the plot if more than one interment …

No conveyance or other action of the owner without the written consent or joinder of the spouse of the owner divests the spouse of a vested right of interment, except that a final decree of divorce between them terminates the vested right of interment unless otherwise provided in…

If no interment is made in an interment plot which has been transferred by deed or certificate of ownership to an individual owner, or if all remains previously interred are lawfully removed, upon the death of the owner, unless he has disposed of the plot either in his will by a …

Cemetery property passing to an individual by reason of the death of the owner is exempt from all inheritance taxes. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

An affidavit by a person having knowledge of the facts setting forth the fact of the death of the owner and the name of the person or persons entitled to the use of the plot pursuant to this chapter, is complete authorization to the cemetery authority to permit the use of the uno…

In a conveyance to two or more persons as joint tenants each joint tenant has a vested right of interment in the plot conveyed. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

Upon the death of a joint tenant, the title to the plot held in joint tenancy immediately vests in the survivors, subject to the vested right of interment of the remains of the deceased joint tenant. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

Cemetery property held in joint tenancy is exempt from the provisions of the Probate Code relating to proceedings for establishing the fact of death of a person whose death affects title to real property.

An affidavit by any person having knowledge of the facts setting forth the fact of the death of one joint tenant and establishing the identity of the surviving joint tenants named in the deed to any plot, when filed with the cemetery authority operating the cemetery in which the …

When there are several owners of a plot, or of rights of interment in it, they may designate one or more persons to represent the plot and file written notice of designation with the cemetery authority. In the absence of such notice or of written objection to its so doing, the ce…

(a) Whenever an interment of the remains of a member or of a relative of a member of the family of the record owner or of the remains of the record owner is made in a plot transferred by deed or certificate of ownership to an individual owner, the plot shall become the family plo…

An affidavit executed by a person who is the owner of the plot by virtue of the laws of intestate succession or by his or her attorney-in-fact, setting forth the fact of the death of the owner, the absence of a disposition of the plot by the owner in his or her will by a specific…

In a family plot one grave, niche or crypt may be used for the owner’s interment; one for the owner’s surviving spouse, if any, who by law has a vested right of interment in it; and in those remaining, if any, the parents and children of the deceased owner in order of death may b…

If no parent or child survives, the right of interment goes in the order of death first, to the spouse of any child of the record owner and second, in the order of death to the next heirs at law of the owner or the spouse of any heir at law. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

Any surviving spouse, parent, child or heir who has a right of interment in a family plot may waive such right in favor of any other relative, or spouse of a relative of either the deceased owner or of his spouse, and upon such waiver the remains of the person in whose favor the …

A vested right of interment may be waived and is terminated upon the interment elsewhere of the remains of the person in whom vested. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)

No vested right of interment gives to any person the right to have his remains interred in any interment space in which the remains of any deceased person having a prior vested right of interment have been interred, nor does it give any person the right to have the remains of mor…

A cemetery authority may take and hold any plot conveyed or devised to it by the plot owner so that it will be inalienable, and interments shall be restricted to the persons designated in the conveyance or devise. (Enacted by Stats. 1939, Ch. 60.)