Buying Property with a cemetery

Hi Folks, I have an opportunity to buy a piece of hunting ground near my other farm. It is a good hunting tract, but it does have a small cemetery at the front of the tract. I know I have to allow the families access, but are there other items to be concerned about?

It does not look like there is a separate deed for the cemetery, so if someone wants to be buried there, do they have to buy that plot from me??

Anyone have any thoughts? Thanks

Are you responsible for the upkeep (mowing, trimming, etc.)? Are there fund that have been invested that you receive to cover maintenance? Just somethings to consider.

Hmm.....now that I think of it, I have a few relatives buried in some cornfields in Iowa as well as a couple of hardwood bottoms in Pike county Illinois. I will go ahead and let these landowners know I plan on making multiple visits in November and to send me a key to the gate!

Cemetery

Carve out an acre to be owned by the family of the people that have a someone buried there. If necessary, provide an easement through your property with strict guidelines. Maybe think about putting something in the deed that limits who maybe buried there in the future -- i.e. direct lineage of family only. If you don't own it you don't have upkeep and or taxes to pay on it. I think there are some State regulations that pertain to cemeteries - might want to research.

deers2ward said:

Hmm.....now that I think of it, I have a few relatives buried in some cornfields in Iowa as well as a couple of hardwood bottoms in Pike county Illinois. I will go ahead and let these landowners know I plan on making multiple visits in November and to send me a key to the gate!

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I think I might be distant relatives of them too. Maybe long lost and finally found the connection

I do not believe that there are any laws guaranteeing access to a cemetery on private land in Georgia. However case law recognizes the right of heirs of those buried in the cemetery to an implied easement for the purpose of taking care of the burial plots and preventing damage to them.

In Ga there are laws protecting abandoned cemeteries at Title 36, Chapter 72. Generally the law states that human remains and burial objects are not property to be owned by the owner of the land on which they are located and it requires the respectful treatment of such items. It gives the counties the authority but not the requirement to care for abandoned cemeteries and it gives them the authority to bill the blood decedents for any expense incurred in that regard.

It requires that a permit be acquired by the landowner before any development take place that would disturb the cemetery. It requires the entity desiring to disturb the cemetery to mitigate the harm to the cemetery and to bear the related costs.

The bottom line is that you are not responsible for maintaining the cemetery but would be responsible for repairing any damage that you caused to it.

My MIL property in Virginia has an old family cemetery on it. When my wife and I got married 12 years ago, I'd see someone visit it and Mai Tai. It. Haven't seen anyone there in years, doesn't look like it's been mowed in years. It's fenced in, I've assumed it was probably an ease t on the deed. To me common courtesy would be to allow access to it as needed. Most will probably not have anyone buried in them again.

Back many years ago, we had some distant relatives that owned some land and as their relatives died out, they had become absentee land owners as such since they had moved up to the Greenville/Spartanburg area to be closer to their children. My cousin met with the land owners and advised them that we would look after their property and take good care of it and not damage any trees etc or be careless with any fires as well. We had a great place to hunt with lots of deer etc and all we had to do each year was to pay just the property taxes which was only about $250-$300 at most. We enjoyed having our campers etc as we had an electric line installed with a meter etc for many years.

This property was located right on Clark's Hill Lake in the Cherokee Creek section and the neighboring owner that lived 24/7/365 right beside this property had a really nice boathouse very close to where it adjoined this property that ultimately became our hunting "club" of sorts for about 33 years or so. The Corp of Engineers property was just a narrow buffer strip that was located between this property and the actual lake waterline. In the area of the boathouse, the actual property line was only 60 feet from the waterline to our property lines because of the slope area. We enjoyed some great crappie fishing as the water underneath the boathouse was 12-15 feet deep most of the year.

We got along great with the neighbor and we hunted in the fall and winter and fished in the spring and summer. We had a wonderful time there for so many years. Well in an area that I normally hunted for several years, I actually found an old grave and it looked like it might have been a couple of graves. I cleaned this area of the leaves and vines and roots etc and was able to read on the marker slab for it. It turned out to be a Methodist preacher that had died back in the 1860's and apparently nobody really new about this gravesite being there. Well I made the mistake of telling my Mother, who in turn told the Women's Society etc and before we knew it, the Historical Society was searching all over our property during the deer hunting season and they didn't care about us at all. After the Historical Society got involved, heck within a few years they wanted to know just where EVERY old cemetery/gravesite was located in Lincoln County so that they could publish a book about this information. They researched so much on this project and they finally completed their work on it.

Most of you have probably heard........You don't know what a good thing that you have going until you lose it !!!! Well Keep Reading !!!

The bottom line is that when you know that you really have a GREAT DEAL on such a beautiful property to hunt/fish etc, no matter if you find a 150 year-old grave etc, keep your mouth shut and keep hunting and fishing because you know that whoever might be buried on that property is not going to get up and walk out of there and go tell someone else !!!!!!

JustUs4All said:

I do not believe that there are any laws guaranteeing access to a cemetery on private land in Georgia. However case law recognizes the right of heirs of those buried in the cemetery to an implied easement for the purpose of taking care of the burial plots and preventing damage to them.

In Ga there are laws protecting abandoned cemeteries at Title 36, Chapter 72. Generally the law states that human remains and burial objects are not property to be owned by the owner of the land on which they are located and it requires the respectful treatment of such items. It gives the counties the authority but not the requirement to care for abandoned cemeteries and it gives them the authority to bill the blood decedents for any expense incurred in that regard.

It requires that a permit be acquired by the landowner before any development take place that would disturb the cemetery. It requires the entity desiring to disturb the cemetery to mitigate the harm to the cemetery and to bear the related costs.

The bottom line is that you are not responsible for maintaining the cemetery but would be responsible for repairing any damage that you caused to it.

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This is pretty much correct. There are proscriptive easements that are gained by CONTINUAL REGULAR usage of the passage. If it is not used on some type of regular basis, the easement is considered to be abandoned. I would check the records in the Clerk of Court's office to see if there are recorded easements. If not, it is property that you own but can't disturb without a court's permission.

BTW, we have an abandoned cemetery on the next property over. I killed a deer late one evening and as luck would have it, where do you think he chose to die? Dead in the middle of this overgrown plot of tombstones and slabs. It was late at night before we tracked him down and dragged him out.

but are there other items to be concerned about?

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Ghosts....

The cemetery is maintained very well. The grass looks like a golf course and the road in is always cut as well. I have to desire to stop the families access, I just want to put up a gate to stop the other idiots from dumping trash in other parts of the property.

I am going to try and found out the families that visit, I hope they would like the idea of a gate as it would help to keep others from destroying the cemetery as well.

I think you will probably find the family most cooperative.