N.Y. Not-for-Profit Corporation Law § 1506: Cemetery lands

§ 1506. Cemetery lands.

(a) Purchase of land; notice to cemetery board. (1) 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.

(2) Notwithstanding the restrictions set forth in subparagraph three

of paragraph (h) of this section, a cemetery corporation may purchase

real property for cemetery purposes that is not adjacent to existing

cemetery property or that would result in the cemetery corporation

owning more than two hundred acres of land in the aggregate upon proving

to the satisfaction of the cemetery board:

i. that the proposed purchase will benefit the cemetery corporation

and the owners of plots and graves in the cemetery;

ii. that the cemetery has sufficient funds and sufficient ability to

take on any debt required by the proposed terms of purchase;

iii. that the cemetery corporation fully investigated available land

in reasonable proximity to its existing cemetery and that the proposed

purchase is prudent, taking into consideration the proximity of the land

to the existing cemetery, the quantity of land, the proposed purchase

price, and if applicable, the number of lot sales and income the land is

reasonably expected to generate, and the future needs of the cemetery;

and

iv. that the municipalities that would be required to assume the care

and control of any part of the cemetery if the cemetery corporation were

to be abandoned have been notified of the proposed purchase.

(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, merger 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 fifty acres of

land unless the acquisition is by an abandonment pursuant to section

fifteen hundred six-c of this article or a merger or consolidation of

cemetery corporations pursuant to article nine of this chapter that

complies with the additional requirement of section fifteen hundred

six-d of this article, except that such limitation shall not apply to

paragraph (n) of this section and the provisions of subparagraph two of

paragraph (a) of this section. 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 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 unless

the acquisition is by an abandonment pursuant to section fifteen hundred

six-c of this article or a merger or consolidation of cemetery

corporations pursuant to article nine of this chapter that complies with

the additional requirements of section fifteen hundred six-d of this

article. 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 paragraph (c) of section fourteen hundred one of this

chapter. Nothing herein contained shall prohibit a cemetery corporation

from assuming management and maintenance of an abandoned cemetery

pursuant to section fifteen hundred six-c of this article or a merger or

consolidation of cemetery corporations pursuant to article nine of this

chapter that complies with the additional requirements of section

fifteen hundred six-d of this article.

(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 or otherwise. (1) 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.

(2) 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.

(3) A cemetery corporation may acquire, otherwise than by

condemnation, real property exclusively for the purposes of a cemetery

as aforesaid in subparagraph 1 of this paragraph and additional real

property for the purposes of the convenient transactions of its

business, no portion of which shall be used for the purposes of a

cemetery. Notwithstanding the foregoing or any other provision of law to

the contrary, a cemetery corporation that holds real property for

cemetery purposes that exceeds two hundred acres in the aggregate or

that does not form one continuous tract as a result of acquisitions of

real property that occurred prior to the effective date of the chapter

of the laws of two thousand twenty which amended this paragraph and for

which all approvals and consents required at the time to acquire such

real property were obtained, may continue to use such real property for

cemetery purposes.

(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.

(m) Prohibition of stand-alone mausoleum and columbarium. No

application for the construction of a mausoleum or columbarium to be

located in any city, town or village shall be approved by the cemetery

board when such mausoleum or columbarium shall be the only form of

interment offered by a cemetery corporation, unless a management

contract has been entered into with an existing cemetery corporation

regulated under this article, that will provide operational management

of the mausoleum or columbarium, and the owner of the mausoleum or

columbarium has reserved interment space and secured interment services

in a cemetery regulated under this article, in order to assure continued

perpetual care of the remains contained in the mausoleum or columbarium

should such mausoleum or columbarium become abandoned or choose to cease

operations.

(n) The provisions of this section shall not operate to prevent any

two cemeteries located in Suffolk county with contiguous or adjacent

land dedicated for cemetery purposes and previously operating as public

cemetery corporations, from effectuating a merger of such cemeteries

where their total acreage does not exceed three hundred twenty-five

acres.