New South Wales Consolidated Acts

CEMETERIES AND CREMATORIA ACT 2013 - SECT 61

61 Cemetery operator may determine holder of interment right

(1) This section applies if there is a dispute or other doubt about who holds an interment right for a particular interment site in a cemetery.

(2) A person who believes he or she is the holder of the interment right may apply to the cemetery operator for the cemetery for a decision that the person holds the interment right.

(3) As soon as practicable after receiving the application the cemetery operator must make a decision about whether the person holds or does not hold the interment right for the interment site.

(4) However, the cemetery operator may make a decision that the person holds the interment right for the interment site only if--

(a) at least 28 days before making the decision, the cemetery operator--

(i) displays a notice about its intention to make the decision in a prominent position at the cemetery, and

(ii) publishes a notice about its intention to make the decision in the Gazette, and

(iia) publishes a notice about its intention to make the decision in a newspaper circulating throughout the State or in a manner approved in writing by the Minister having regard to the object of bringing notices of that kind to the attention of persons who may hold the relevant interment rights for interment sites, and

(iii) takes any other steps it considers reasonable in the circumstances to determine who holds the interment right for the interment site, or

(b) in the reasonable opinion of the cemetery operator it is not possible to follow the procedure in paragraph (a) because it is necessary to make an urgent decision due to the imminent interment of a person who was related by blood or marriage to, or who was in a domestic relationship with--

(i) the applicant, or

(ii) a person interred in the interment site.

(5) If the cemetery operator decides that the person holds the interment right for the interment site, the cemetery operator is taken to have revoked any other interment right for the interment site.