New Jersey cremation, cemetery and prepaid-funeral rights

New Jersey requires the New Jersey Cemetery Board’s prior approval before a crematory is built. A crematory may be located only on dedicated cemetery property that is not devoted exclusively to cremation, or to cremation and the placement of cremated remains. That location rule does not apply to crematoriums operated with funeral homes before December 1, 1971. Ask which crematory will perform the cremation and where it is located. [2][1][3][4]

No one may cremate a body until at least 24 hours have passed from the time of death recorded on the death certificate. If timing matters to your family, ask when the cremation is scheduled. [5]

Before doing business with the public, a cemetery company must file its regulations and its charges for services with the board, and changes must be filed before they take effect. The rules, regulations and charges must be posted conspicuously in each of the company’s public offices and on the cemetery grounds. Ask to see the posted charges before you agree to buy. [6]

Every cemetery company must set up an irrevocable trust called the Maintenance and Preservation Fund, and the fund’s income is spent on maintaining and preserving the cemetery. Required payments into the fund include 15% of the gross sales price on a cemetery company’s initial sale of each grave, and 10% of the initial sales price of a crypt or niche in a public mausoleum or columbarium. Ask which fund payment applies to what you are buying. [7][8]

The law’s definition of a cemetery company does not include a religious organization whose cemetery restricts burials to members of that religion or their families, unless the organization has obtained a certificate of authority for the cemetery. That exclusion does not tell you what care such a cemetery promises. Ask a religious cemetery whether it holds a certificate of authority and how its long-term care is funded. [1]

Under New Jersey law, money paid in advance for funeral or burial goods, or for the services of a funeral director, undertaker or cemetery, that will not be delivered or performed until death is held as trust funds. It must be deposited within 30 days after receipt in a special account at a federally insured state or federally chartered bank, savings bank or savings and loan association or, if the payer asks, in a pooled trust account the payer chooses. It stays on deposit with any interest until the goods are delivered and the services rendered, unless repaid sooner. This trust law does not apply to a cemetery’s sale of lots or graves, or to individually issued insurance policies used to fund prepaid funeral agreements. Ask where your money will be deposited and for proof of the account. [9][12]

Money paid under such an agreement, together with any interest earned while on deposit as required, must be repaid on demand at any time before the goods are delivered or the services are rendered. A term in the agreement that waives any part of this protection is void. Ask how to make a refund demand and to whom it should be sent. [10][11]

Prepaid funeral agreements signed on or after the effective date of New Jersey’s 1993 prepaid funeral law must state that the funeral arrangements are revocable and that the funding arrangements can be separated from them. However, an agreement may make the funeral trust irrevocable during the funeral recipient’s lifetime under specific statutes tied to public-benefit eligibility. One of them covers aged, blind or disabled people who apply for or receive Supplemental Security Income or a qualifying Medicaid program, or who reasonably expect to apply within six months; if that does not happen within six months, the trust reverts to a revocable trust. Check whether your agreement makes the trust irrevocable before you sign. [13][14][15]

If a prepaid funeral agreement is connected to a funeral insurance policy, it must state that cancelling the funeral arrangements will not cancel the policy, and that cancelling, withdrawing or borrowing against the policy’s proceeds or cash value voids any price guarantee. It must also state that cancelling the prepaid funeral agreement will not result in a refund of premiums paid. Ask how your plan is funded and, if it uses insurance, what the policy itself would pay if you cancelled it. [16]