The Vermont Statutes Online
The Vermont Statutes Online have been updated to include the actions of the 2023 session of the General Assembly.
NOTE: The Vermont Statutes Online is an unofficial copy of the Vermont Statutes Annotated that is provided as a convenience.
Title 18 : Health
Chapter 121 : Cemeteries
Subchapter 005 : Ownership of Cemetery Lots
(Cite as: 18 V.S.A. § 5531)-
§ 5531. Disposal of lot by will; descent; burial rights of husband and wife
(a) The owner of a cemetery lot may dispose of same by will to any one of the owner’s relatives who may survive the owner, or to any agency owning and conducting the cemetery in which the lot is situated, in trust, for the use and benefit of any person or persons designated in such will. When no express disposition or other mention is made in a will of a cemetery lot owned by the testator at the testator’s decease, and where the testator or any member of the testator’s family is buried, the ownership of the lot shall not pass from the testator’s lawful heirs by any residuary or other general clause of the will but shall descend to the testator’s heirs, as if the testator had died intestate.
(b) A wife shall be entitled to a right of interment for her own body in any burial lot or tomb of sufficient size and space to permit such interment, of which her husband was seized at any time during coverture, which shall be exempt from the operation of the laws regulating conveyance, descent, and devise, but may be released by her in the same manner as dower. A husband shall have the same rights in the burial lot or tomb of his wife as a wife has in that of her husband. A husband or wife living separate from the other, and owning a burial lot or tomb in which the other but for this section would have no right of burial or interment, at least 30 days before the death of the other, may file with the agency conducting the cemetery in which such burial lot or tomb is located a written objection to the interment of the other and thereupon there shall be no right of interment of such husband or wife under this section.
(c) The Probate Division of the Superior Court shall have jurisdiction to determine all questions arising under the provisions of this section.
(d) Nothing contained in this section shall be construed as a limitation of the right of any agency owning and conducting a cemetery, either by rule and regulation, or by deed or contract, to define or limit the persons or classes of persons having the right of burial upon any lot in the cemetery of such agency, or to prohibit or restrict the resale of any such lot or burial space. (Amended 2009, No. 154 (Adj. Sess.), § 149, eff. Feb. 1, 2011; 2023, No. 6, § 187, eff. July 1, 2023.)
