85R24390 DMS-F
	By: Buckingham	S.B. No. 1630
	(Howard)
	Substitute the following for S.B. No. 1630:  No.

	A BILL TO BE ENTITLED
	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.