Massachusetts Statutes

Section 31. If in a will no express disposition or other mention is made of a cemetery lot owned by the testator at his decease, and wherein he or any member of his family is buried, the ownership of the lot shall not pass from his lawful heirs by any residuary or other general c…

Section 32. A person shall be entitled to a right of interment for his own body in any burial lot or tomb of which his spouse was seized at any time during marriage, which shall be exempt from the operation of the laws relating to conveyance, descent and devise, but may be releas…

Section 33. A husband shall have the same rights in the tomb or burial lot of his wife as a wife has in that of her husband.

Section 34. Except in the case of the erection or use of a tomb on private land for the exclusive use of the family of the owner, no land, other than that already so used or appropriated, shall be used for burial, unless by permission of the town or of the mayor and aldermen of t…

Section 35. No land other than that so used and appropriated on April tenth, nineteen hundred and eight, shall be used for the purpose of burial if it be so situated that surface water or ground drainage therefrom may enter any stream, pond, reservoir, well, filter gallery or oth…

Section 36. Any person, including those persons in control of any public land, or the officers of any municipality, aggrieved by the action of a board of health in approving the purchase, taking or use of any lands for cemetery purposes may, within sixty days, appeal from the ord…

Section 37. Boards of health may make regulations concerning burial grounds and interments within their towns; may impose penalties not exceeding one hundred dollars for a breach thereof; may prohibit the use by undertakers, for the purpose of speculation, of tombs as places of d…

Section 38. Before a tomb, burial ground or cemetery is closed by order of the board of health for more than one month, all persons interested shall have an opportunity to be heard, and personal notice of the time and place of hearing shall be given to at least one owner of the t…

Section 39. The owner of a tomb aggrieved by an order of the board of health closing a tomb, burial ground or cemetery may, within six months after the date thereof, appeal therefrom to the superior court, first giving written notice to the board fourteen days before the entry of…

Section 3A. No cemetery corporation created by special charter or organized under the provisions of section one shall take over ownership of an unoccupied grave unless a minimum of seventy-five years has elapsed after issuance of a license for the grave by the cemetery corporatio…

Section 4. The secretary or clerk of such corporation may give certified copies of all deeds and instruments so recorded, which may be used in evidence in the same manner as copies certified by the register of deeds.

Section 40. Appeals shall be tried before a jury, and if the jury find that the tomb, burial ground or cemetery so closed was not a nuisance or injurious to the public health at the time of the order and that the closing thereof was not necessary for the protection of the public …

Section 41. A public way shall not be laid out or constructed in, upon or through an enclosure used or appropriated for a burial place except by special authority from the general court or with the previous consent of the inhabitants of the town where such enclosure is situated; …

Section 42. Whoever uses as a means of passage from one point to another, not being thereupon at the time for any other purpose, the premises of a cemetery or burial place, in any other parts thereof than the defined ways, paths and walks, shall be punished by a fine of not more …

Section 42A. No cemetery exempted from taxation under the provisions of section five of chapter fifty-nine shall be closed for visitations between the hours of eight o'clock antemeridian and sunset, except during the months of June, July, August and September when such cemeteries…

Section 42B. No person shall use the premises of a cemetery or burial place for the purpose of taking photographs or making a motion picture for commercial purposes without the previous consent of the board of commissioners, trustees or directors of such cemetery or burial place …

Section 43. No building shall be erected upon any burial place belonging to a city, except by special authority from the general court, or with the previous consent of the city council.

Section 43A. No cemetery established on or after July first, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, shall be owned, maintained or operated except by a municipality or other political subdivision of the commonwealth, a church, a religious or charitable society, or by a cemetery associat…

Section 43B. The sale of cemetery lots and plots, or the sale of crypts in a community mausoleum or niches in a columbarium, for speculative purposes, or the conveyance of any portion of a cemetery already dedicated to burial purposes as security for debt, is hereby prohibited, a…

Section 43C. The proceeds of the sales of lots and plots in a cemetery shall, except as hereinafter provided, be applied solely to the improvement and maintenance of the cemetery and the avenues, paths and structures situated therein, for the purchase of additional cemetery land,…

Section 43D. Every community mausoleum, other than a structure containing crypts erected or controlled by a church or a religious society and used only as a repository for the remains of the clergy or dignitaries of such church or religious society, and every crematory, columbari…

Section 43E. No community mausoleum, the crypts of which are available to the public for burial purposes, shall be erected without the consent and approval of the department of environmental protection. Before commencing the erection of any such structure, full detailed plans and…

Section 43F. The department of environmental protection shall have supervisory control over the erection of any such community mausoleum and shall enforce compliance with the approved plans and specifications therefor. Said department shall appoint an inspector, experienced in mo…

Section 43G. No community mausoleum, crypt or structure erected as aforesaid shall be used for the purpose of depositing therein the remains of any dead body until such mausoleum, crypt or structure, or a component section thereof, is fully completed, and the permanent care and i…

Section 43H. No crypt in a community mausoleum shall be sold or offered for sale before said structure, or a component section thereof, is fully completed.

Section 43I. Whenever any mausoleum, vault, crypt or other structure containing one or more dead human bodies shall, in the opinion of the department of public health, become a menace to public health, and the owner thereof fails to remedy or remove the same to the satisfaction o…

Section 43J. Every cemetery association or other agency establishing, maintaining and operating a community mausoleum on or after July first, nineteen hundred and thirty-six, shall create and establish a permanent care and improvement fund, distinct and separate from the permanen…

Section 43K. The treasurer of the cemetery in which such community mausoleum is situated shall be the custodian of the permanent care and improvement fund established therefor as aforesaid and every such fund shall be held, administered and invested in the manner provided by law …

Section 43L. Any cemetery, community mausoleum or columbarium established, maintained or operated in violation of or contrary to any provision of this chapter shall be a nuisance and may be abated or enjoined as such at the suit of any taxpayer of the commonwealth.

Section 43M. Except as otherwise provided by law, or in case of a dead body being rightfully carried through or removed from the commonwealth for the purpose of burial or disposition elsewhere, every dead body of a human being dying within the commonwealth, and the remains of any…

Section 43N. Whoever fails to comply with or violates any provision of this chapter in respect to the establishment, maintenance or operation of a cemetery, community mausoleum, crematory or columbarium, or to the disposal of dead human bodies, shall, unless another penalty is pr…

Section 43O. The following corporations owning or operating cemeteries shall not sell or engage in the business of selling monuments for cemetery lots:— Municipal corporations, cemetery corporations organized under general laws, and cemetery corporations organized by acts of inco…

Section 44. The body of a deceased person shall not be cremated within 48 hours after his decease unless he died of a contagious or infectious disease, and, if the death occurred within the commonwealth, the body shall not be cremated by any corporation authorized to cremate the …

Section 44A. The body of a deceased person to be cremated shall be contained in a suitable receptacle; provided, however, that a casket shall not be used for such cremation unless such use has been requested by a person lawfully entitled to the custody and control of such body.

Section 45. Except as provided in sections forty-four and forty-six, no undertaker or other person shall bury or otherwise dispose of a human body in a town, or remove therefrom a human body which has not been buried, until he has received a permit from the board of health or its…

Section 45A. No funeral director, whether doing business as an individual, partnership or corporation, shall permit his name to be used in connection with any death certificate or burial permit unless he was specifically engaged to perform the burial to which such permit or certi…

Section 46. Whenever a dead body is brought into the commonwealth for burial, accompanied by a removal permit issued under the laws of the state from which such body is brought, such permit shall be received as sufficient authority for burial, and the superintendent or person or …

Section 46A. No permit for the burial or other disposition of the body of a deceased veteran, known to be such, as the term veteran is defined in section twenty-one of chapter thirty-one, shall be issued unless and until an affidavit, as hereinafter set forth, shall have been fil…

Section 47. No person having the care of a cemetery, burial ground or crematory shall permit the burial, removal or cremation of a human body until the permit for such burial, removal or cremation has been delivered to him, nor permit the ashes of a human body to be buried therei…

Section 48. An undertaker shall not bury the ashes of a human body until he has received from the person having the charge of the crematory a certificate that the burial permit and the certificate of the medical examiner prerequisite to the cremating of said body have been duly p…

Section 49. The board of health of each town shall annually, on or before May first, license persons to act as funeral directors therein upon such terms and conditions as the board of registration in embalming and funeral directing, established by section twenty-nine of chapter t…

Section 5. Such corporation may hold funds in trust and apply the income thereof to the improvement or embellishment of the cemetery or to the care, preservation or embellishment of any lot or its appurtenances.

Section 50. Violations of any of the provisions of sections forty-four to forty-eight, inclusive, shall be punished by a fine of not more than fifty dollars.

Section 51. No person shall sell, offer for sale, or supply others with any embalming fluid, or any substitute therefor, which contains more than five milligrams of arsenic per litre. Violation of any provision of this section shall be punished by a fine of one thousand dollars o…

Section 5A. No such cemetery corporation shall deny the right to perform burials and the functions incidental thereto to the funeral director designated by the representative of the deceased, provided the deceased is otherwise entitled to interment in said cemetery.

Section 5B. Each such cemetery corporation shall notify, or cause the funeral director designated by the representatives of the deceased to notify, the family of the deceased or the person making funeral arrangements for the deceased of the choice of three options for burial serv…