Oklahoma cemetery care and prepaid funeral rights

In Oklahoma cemeteries covered by the Perpetual Care Fund Act where burial spaces are sold, not less than 10 percent of the purchase price must be set aside in a permanent trust fund called the Perpetual Care Fund. Only the income may be used, for improving, caring for and embellishing the lots, walks, drives, parks and other improvements in the cemetery, and for office maintenance and care of records. The cemetery must deposit the money with a financial institution acting as trustee no later than 30 days after the end of the month in which it receives the final payment for each burial space. Ask how much of your purchase price goes into the Perpetual Care Fund. [5]

The Perpetual Care Fund Act does not apply to municipal, religious, fraternal or nonprofit entities, free community burial grounds, county cemetery associations, Indian tribal cemeteries on tribal land, or charitable or eleemosynary institutions operating cemeteries. For cemeteries it does cover, a fraudulent or intentional failure or refusal to honor a contract to care for the burial lots and grounds after accepting money is unlawful and is also a violation of the Oklahoma Consumer Protection Act. Ask whether the cemetery is covered by the Act, and get its care promises in writing. [6][7]

An Oklahoma funeral establishment must first obtain a permit from the Insurance Commissioner before it offers, accepts money for or contracts for prepaid funeral benefits, and the permit must be displayed in a conspicuous place on its premises. An establishment cannot enforce a contract made in violation of the law, and the purchaser, the purchaser’s heirs or legal representative are entitled to recover triple the amounts paid, with interest at six percent a year. Ask to see the establishment’s prepaid funeral permit before you pay. [1][2]

Under a contract for specific funeral merchandise and services at a guaranteed price, the establishment may keep the first 10 percent of the purchase price from the first funds collected. After that, 100 percent of the funds collected under prepaid funeral contracts must be invested, except for outer enclosures, where the establishment may keep the first 35 percent of the retail price collected. The money that must be deposited has to be placed within ten days of collection in a trust fund in Oklahoma. Ask what share of each payment goes into trust and where the trust is held. [3]

Oklahoma’s prepaid funeral law does not apply to burial associations run by religious or benevolent organizations, to the sale of grave lots or spaces or burial or interment rights, to crypts, niches or outer enclosures that are delivered or installed, or to cemetery merchandise sold under the Cemetery Merchandise Trust Act. Ask the seller which law covers what you are buying. [4]