C:\Documents and Settings\HP Administrator.OWNER
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
West Virginia Families and members of a religious group in West final disposition. After disposition, this permit must be Virginia may care for their own dead. The following filed with the state registrar. statutes are relevant: Burial Title 30-6-22. Disposition of body of deceased Although private graves are mentioned in the person. (a) No public officer, employee, physician or statutes, there are none that specifically permit (or surgeon, or any other person having a professional prohibit) home burial. It is also unlikely that there are relationship with the deceased, shall send, or cause local zoning regulations regarding home burial, but you to be sent, to any embalmer, funeral director or should review them before planning a family cemetery. crematory operator the body of any deceased without If your land is in a rural area, draw a map of the property first inquiring the desires of the next of kin, or any showing where the burial ground will be and have it persons who may be chargeable with the funeral filed with the deed. That may be all you have to do to expenses of the deceased. If any next of kin or person establish your family cemetery. There are no state burial can be found, his or her authority and direction shall statutes or regulations with regard to burial locations or be used as to the disposal of the body of the depth. A sensible guideline is 150 feet from a water deceased. supply, 25 feet from a power line, with two or three feet of earth on top. Plan your family cemetery away from Title 30-6-31: (re embalmers and funeral directors) . boundaries with neighbors, too. .The provisions of this article do not apply to or Landowners have an obligation to permit interfere with . the customs or rites of any descendants and interested others to visit graves on religious sect in the burial of its dead. private property. When burial is arranged, the family member acting as There are no other statutes that might require you to the funeral director should sign the permit for use a funeral director. disposition and retain it as a record. When there is no person in charge of the burial ground, the words “No Death Certificate person in charge” should be written across the face of West Virginia has not yet implemented electronic the permit. death registration but expects to “soon.” If the state doesn’t keep some of the old four-part death certificate Cremation forms in circulation, it is likely there will be some other Authorization for cremation must be obtained from paper alternative for home funeral families. You will the State Medical Examiner, county medical examiner need to get the medical certification of death (either or county coroner. There is a modest fee for this. printed out from the physician’s electronic entry or on Authorization by next-of-kin is usually required, and a the substitute form) and then fill in the demographic pacemaker must be removed. The crematory operator information about the deceased. This must be sent to the will retain the burial-transit permit. state Department of Vital Statistics within five days and One must get permission from the person running a before final disposition. cemetery in order to deposit or bury cremated remains there. There are no other laws regarding the disposition Fetal Death of cremated remains. You may do as you wish. A fetal death report is required when death occurs after 20 weeks of gestation and must be filed as above. Other Requirements West Virginia has no embalming requirements. Transporting and Disposition Permit Weather and reasonable planning should be considered. A body may be moved with medical consent. The If the person died of a contagious or communicable physician, medical examiner, or coroner will authorize disease, the physician in attendance should be consulted. From the book "Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death," Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Carlson and Joshua Slocum. All rights reserved. For permissions, contact the publisher, Upper Access, Inc., <[email protected]> or 802-482-2988. Medical Schools for Body Donation construction must start—or until 80% of the space has Body donation to a medical school is another option been sold, whichever comes first. If each sale represents for disposition. Find the information for West Virginia a simple 50% mark-up over cost, then 100% of the at <www.finalrights.org>. construction money will have been raised after selling half or 50% of the crypts. An investor, however, can State Governance wait a little longer, selling the next 30% of the crypts, The West Virginia Board of Funeral Service collecting 60% of the total profit to be made without Examiners has seven members—five funeral directors, ever having had to build or maintain a thing. State laws one crematory operator, and one of whom is a lay seem strangely silent on any trusting requirements for member. Crematories are licensed by this board; one the money from preconstruction mausoleum sales or does not need to be a funeral director to operate a how to protect consumers in case of default. crematory. How long construction might take doesn't seem to The Board has an excellent web site full of helpful have been considered, either. Funeral directors tell me information such as the page on the right to control that most preneed plans are used within six years. disposition. It also makes clear what topics would Wonder where they'll put the bodies in the meantime? constitute grounds for a complaint and explains the You might want to ask before purchasing anything that complaint procedure clearly. hasn't been built. Or ask how to get your money and <http://www.wvfuneralboard.com/> interest back if you change your mind. The Consumer Protection Division in the Attorney A preneed seller of funeral plans may not make in- General's office regulates preneed funeral transactions. person solicitations , including by telephone. Contact Cemetery preneed is regulated by the State Tax must be invited by the purchaser. No such restrictions Department. The Public Service Commission sets the exist for cemetery sales, so you can be sure that those rates that may be charged for setting the government- companies owning combo operations will send their issued monuments for veterans. “cemetery” sales reps to your door. Of course, while they are there . Prepaid Cemetery and Funeral Funds All preneed sellers must be licensed and are not Only 40% of prepaid cemetery goods and services necessarily funeral directors. A preneed seller may must be placed in trust . “ Constructive delivery ” can retain 10% of the prepaid funeral funds as a bypass the trusting requirement altogether for vaults and commission, “to offset administrative and operating markers. There's no indication that the state has a costs.” The commission can be taken first if you are procedure for verifying that these are waiting for you in paying on an installment plan. In other words, on a the warehouse, so the cemetery probably feels free to $5,000 funeral, the funeral director can pocket the first pocket all your money right away. (In one state, there $500. After that, the rest of the funds must be placed in were only 200 of the 500 pre-sold vaults in stock when trust with interest to accrue. Constructive delivery of someone finally went to check.) If you've paid for a funeral goods is not permitted. vault and the opening-and-closing charges for a full Within ten days of a preneed sale, it must be body burial, it's probably unlikely that you'd get much if recorded with the AG’s office which will notify the any money back if you later decided on cremation buyer. A preneed seller must make biennial reports to instead—with only modest interment needs—or had the Attorney General's office. Unless the funds are put moved on to other places and relationships in your life in a qualified funeral trust, there should be an annual and wanted to cancel the whole deal and sell the lot. To report of interest earned, but the statutes are silent in this their credit, legislators require any substitution of regard. cemetery goods and services be approved by the A purchaser may cancel a preneed contract and representative of the deceased. Too bad that doesn’t receive a refund of the 90% in trust plus interest. There apply to funeral goods as well. is a provision for transferring a contract, which would One rather garbled statutory paragraph states that be useful for those with an irrevocable agreement, but interest may be withdrawn for “any appropriate trustee you can count on only 90% plus interest being and auditor fees, commissions and costs,” but once those transferred. are paid, interest is to accrue. Pretty damned generous A provider is obligated to provide those goods and since the cemetery already gets to pocket 60% of what services contracted for in a preneed arrangement even if was paid. they are not desired by the next-of-kin. This is a two- Cemetery vendors may sell unconstructed edged sword. On the one hand, it's one way for the mausoleum space for up to seven years before deceased to make sure that his or her wishes are carried From the book "Final Rights: Reclaiming the American Way of Death," Copyright © 2011 by Lisa Carlson and Joshua Slocum. All rights reserved. For permissions, contact the publisher, Upper Access, Inc., <[email protected]> or 802-482-2988. out. Well, sort of. One family did not have the funds to Consumer Concerns ship a body to Iowa, purchase a vault, and open the • The death rate in West Virginia can support grave—services that were not paid for in the initial approximately 84 full-time mortuaries; there are, contract but necessary to complete the original plan.