Public Act 90-0623 of the 90th General Assembly
Public Act 90-0623
SB1244 Enrolled LRB9008269NTsb
AN ACT to amend the Cemetery Care Act by changing
Sections 2 and 15b.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Illinois,
represented in the General Assembly:
Section 5. The Cemetery Care Act is amended by changing
Sections 2 and 15b as follows:
(760 ILCS 100/2) (from Ch. 21, par. 64.2)
Sec. 2. Definitions. The following words, terms and
phrases used in this Act, for the purpose of this Act, have
the following meanings:
"Person" means any person, partnership, association,
corporation, or other entity.
"Trustee" means any person authorized to hold funds under
this Act.
"Comptroller" means the Comptroller of the State of
Illinois.
"Care" means the maintenance of a cemetery and of the
lots, graves, crypts, niches, family mausoleums, memorials,
and markers therein; including: (i) the cutting and trimming
of lawn, shrubs, and trees at reasonable intervals; (ii)
keeping in repair the drains, water lines, roads, buildings,
fences, and other structures, in keeping with a well
maintained cemetery; (iii) also overhead expense necessary
for such purposes, including maintenance of machinery, tools,
and equipment for such care; (iv) compensation of employees,
payment of insurance premiums, and reasonable payments for
employees pension and other benefits plans; and (v) to the
extent surplus income from the care fund is available, the
payment of overhead expenses necessary for such purposes, and
for maintaining necessary records of lot ownership,
transfers, and burials.
"Care funds" as distinguished from receipts from annual
charges or gifts for current or annual care, means any realty
or personalty impressed with a trust by the terms of any
gift, grant, contribution, payment, legacy, or pursuant to
contract, accepted by any cemetery authority owning,
operating, controlling or managing a privately operated
cemetery, or by any trustee or licensee, agent or custodian
for the same, under Section 3 of this Act, and the amounts
set aside under Section 4 of this Act, and any income
accumulated therefrom, where legally so directed by the terms
of the transaction by which the principal was established.
"Cemetery" means any land or structure in this State
dedicated to and used, or intended to be used, for the
interment of human remains.
"Cemetery authority" means any person, firm, corporation,
trustee, partnership, association or municipality owning,
operating, controlling or managing a cemetery or holding
lands for burial grounds or burial purposes in this State.
"Mausoleum crypt" means a space in a mausoleum used or
intended to be used, above or under ground, to entomb human
remains.
"Family burying ground" means a cemetery in which no lots
are sold to the public and in which interments are restricted
to a group of persons related to each other by blood or
marriage.
"Fraternal cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated,
controlled, or managed by any fraternal organization or
auxiliary organizations thereof, in which the sale of lots,
graves, crypts or niches is restricted principally to its
members.
"Grave" means a space of ground in a cemetery, used, or
intended to be used, for burial.
"Investment Company Act of 1940" means Title 15, of the
United States Code, Sections 80a-1 to 80a-51, inclusive, as
amended.
"Investment Company" means any issuer (a) whose
securities are purchasable only with care funds or trust
funds, or both; and (b) which is an open and diversified
management company as defined in and registered under the
"Investment Company Act of 1940"; and (c) which has entered
into an agreement with the Comptroller containing such
provisions as the Comptroller by regulation reasonably
requires for the proper administration of this Act.
"Municipal cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated,
controlled or managed by any city, village, incorporated
town, township, county, or other municipal corporation,
political subdivision, or instrumentality thereof authorized
by law to own, operate, or manage a cemetery.
"Niche" means a space in a columbarium used or intended
to be used, for inurnment of cremated human remains.
"Privately operated cemetery" means any entity that
offers interment rights, entombment rights or inurnments
rights, other than a fraternal, municipal, State, federal or
religious cemetery or a family burying ground.
"Religious cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated,
controlled, or managed by any recognized church, religious
society, association or denomination, or by any cemetery
authority or any corporation administering, or through which
is administered, the temporalities of any recognized church,
religious society, association or denomination.
"State or federal cemetery" means a cemetery owned,
operated, controlled, or managed by any State or the federal
government or any political subdivision or instrumentality
thereof.
"Entombment right" means the right to place individual
human remains or individual cremated human remains in a
specific mausoleum crypt or lawn crypt selected by the
consumer for use as a final resting place.
"Interment right" means the right to place individual
human remains or cremated human remains in a specific
underground location selected by the consumer for use as a
final resting place.
"Inurnment right" means the right to place individual
cremated human remains in a specific niche selected by the
consumer for use as a final resting place.
"Lawn crypt" means a permanent underground crypt usually
constructed of reinforced concrete or similar material
installed in multiple units for the entombment of human
remains.
"Imputed value" means the retail price of comparable
rights within the same or similar area of the cemetery.
(Source: P.A. 88-477.)
(760 ILCS 100/15b)
Sec. 15b. Sales; liability of purchaser for shortage.
In the case of a sale of any privately operated cemetery
or any part thereof or of any related personal property by a
cemetery authority to a purchaser or pursuant to foreclosure
proceedings, except the sale of burial rights, services, or
merchandise to a person for his or her personal or family
burial or interment, the purchaser is liable for any
shortages existing before or after the sale in the care funds
required to be maintained in a trust pursuant to this Act and
shall honor all instruments issued under Section 4 for that
cemetery. Any shortages existing in the care funds constitute
a prior lien in favor of the trust for the total value of the
shortages, and notice of such lien shall be provided in all
sales instruments.
In the event of a sale or transfer of all or
substantially all of the assets of the cemetery authority,
the sale or transfer of the controlling interest of the
corporate stock of the cemetery authority if the cemetery
authority is a corporation, or the sale or transfer of the
controlling of the partnership if the cemetery authority is a
partnership, the cemetery authority shall, at least 21 days
prior to the sale or transfer, notify the Comptroller, in
writing, of the pending date of sale or transfer so as to
permit the Comptroller to audit the books and records of the
cemetery authority. The audit must be commenced within 5
business days of the receipt of the notification and
completed within the 21 day notification period unless the
Comptroller notifies the cemetery authority during that
period that there is a basis for determining a deficiency
which will require additional time to finalize. The sale or
transfer may not be completed by the cemetery authority
unless and until:
(a) The Comptroller has completed the audit of the
cemetery authority's books and records;
(b) Any delinquency existing in the care funds has
been paid by the cemetery authority, or arrangements
satisfactory to the Comptroller have been made by the
cemetery authority on the sale or transfer for the
payment of any delinquency;
(c) The Comptroller issues a new cemetery care
license upon application of the newly controlled
corporation or partnership, which license must be applied
for within 30 days of the anticipated date of the sale or
transfer, subject to the payment of any delinquencies, if
any, as stated in item (b) above.
For purposes of this Section, a person, firm,
corporation, partnership, or institution that acquires the
cemetery through a real estate foreclosure shall be subject
to the provisions of this Section. The sale or transfer of
the controlling interest of a cemetery authority to an
immediate family member is not subject to the license
application process required in item (c) of this Section.
(Source: P.A. 88-477.)
Section 99. Effective date. This Act takes effect upon
becoming law.