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SECTION 1. Section 711.001,
Health and Safety Code, is amended by amending Subdivisions (1) and (1-a)
and adding Subdivisions (1-b), (29), (30), (31), and (32) to read as
follows:
(1) "Abandoned
cemetery" means a cemetery, regardless of whether it appears on a map
or in deed records, that is not owned or operated by a cemetery
organization, does not have another person legally responsible for its
care, and is not maintained by any person.
(1-a) "Burial
park" means a tract of land that is used or intended to be used for
interment in graves.
(1-b) [(1-a)]
"Campus" means the area:
(A) within the boundaries of
one or more adjacent tracts, parcels, or lots under common ownership;
(B) on which the principal
church building and related structures and facilities of an organized
religious society or sect are located; and
(C) that may be subject to
one or more easements for street, utility, or pipeline purposes.
(29) "Unidentified
grave" means a grave that is not marked in a manner that provides the
identity of the interment.
(30) "Unknown
cemetery" means an abandoned cemetery evidenced by the presence of
marked or unmarked graves that does not appear on a map or in deed records.
(31) "Unmarked
grave" means the immediate area where one or more human interments are
found that:
(A) is not in a
recognized and maintained cemetery;
(B) is not owned or
operated by a cemetery organization;
(C) is not marked by a
tomb, monument, gravestone, or other structure or thing placed or
designated as a memorial of the dead; and
(D) is located on land
designated as agricultural, timber, recreational, park, or scenic land
under Chapter 23, Tax Code.
(32) "Unverified
cemetery" means a location having some evidence of interment but in
which the presence of one or more unmarked graves has not been verified by
a person described by Section 711.0105(a) or by the Texas Historical
Commission.
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SECTION 1. Section 711.001,
Health and Safety Code, is amended to read as follows:
Sec. 711.001. DEFINITIONS.
In this chapter:
(1) "Abandoned
cemetery" means a cemetery, regardless of whether it appears on a map
or in deed records, that is not owned or operated by a cemetery
organization, does not have another person legally responsible for its
care, and is not maintained by any person.
(2) [(1)]
"Burial park" means a tract of land that is used or intended to
be used for interment in graves.
(3) [(1-a)]
"Campus" means the area:
(A) within the boundaries of
one or more adjacent tracts, parcels, or lots under common ownership;
(B) on which the principal
church building and related structures and facilities of an organized
religious society or sect are located; and
(C) that may be subject to
one or more easements for street, utility, or pipeline purposes.
(4) [(2)]
"Cemetery" means a place that is used or intended to be used for
interment, and includes a graveyard, burial park, mausoleum, or any other
area containing one or more graves.
(5) [(2-a)]
"Cemetery element" means a grave, memorial, crypt, mausoleum,
columbarium, or other item that is associated with the cemetery, including
a fence, road, curb, wall, path, gate, or bench and the lighting and
landscaping.
(6) [(2-b)]
"Cemetery broker" means a person who sells the exclusive right of
sepulture for another person. The term does not include a person who:
(A) is an officer, agent, or
employee of the cemetery organization in which the plot is located and who
is exempt from registration under Subchapter C-1; or
(B) originally purchased the
exclusive right of sepulture for personal use.
(7) [(3)]
"Cemetery organization" means:
(A) an unincorporated
association of plot owners not operated for profit that is authorized by
its articles of association to conduct a business for cemetery purposes; or
(B) a corporation, as
defined by Section 712.001(b)(3), that is authorized by its certificate of
formation or its registration to conduct a business for cemetery purposes.
(8) [(4)]
"Cemetery purpose" means a purpose necessary or incidental to
establishing, maintaining, managing, operating, improving, or conducting a
cemetery, interring remains, or caring for, preserving, and embellishing
cemetery property.
(9) [(5)]
"Columbarium" means a durable, fireproof structure, or a room or
other space in a durable, fireproof structure, containing niches and used
or intended to be used to contain cremated remains.
(10) [(5-a)]
"Cremains receptacle" means a marker, boulder, bench, pedestal,
pillar, or other aboveground vessel that contains niches for cremated
remains.
(11) [(6)]
"Cremated remains" or "cremains" means the bone
fragments remaining after the cremation process, which may include the
residue of any foreign materials that were cremated with the human remains.
(12) [(7)]
"Cremation" means the irreversible process of reducing human
remains to bone fragments through extreme heat and evaporation, which may
include the processing or the pulverization of bone fragments.
(13) [(8)]
"Crematory" means a structure containing a furnace used or
intended to be used for the cremation of human remains.
(14) [(9)]
"Crematory and columbarium" means a durable, fireproof structure
containing both a crematory and columbarium.
(15) [(10)]
"Crypt" means a chamber in a mausoleum of sufficient size to
inter human remains.
(16) [(11)]
"Directors" means the governing body of a cemetery organization.
(17) [(12)]
"Entombment" means interment in a crypt.
(18) [(13)]
"Funeral establishment" means a place of business used in the
care and preparation for interment or transportation of human remains, or
any place where one or more persons, either as sole owner, in
copartnership, or through corporate status, are engaged or represent
themselves to be engaged in the business of embalming or funeral directing.
(19) [(14)]
"Grave" means a space of ground that contains interred human
remains or is in a burial park and that is used or intended to be used for
interment of human remains in the ground.
(20) [(15)]
"Human remains" means the body of a decedent.
(21) [(16)]
"Interment" means the permanent disposition of remains by
entombment, burial, or placement in a niche.
(22) [(17)]
"Interment right" means the right to inter the remains of one
decedent in a plot.
(23) [(18)]
"Inurnment" means the placement of cremated remains in an urn.
(24) [(19)]
"Lawn crypt" means a subsurface receptacle installed in multiple
units for ground burial of human remains.
(25) [(20)]
"Mausoleum" means a durable, fireproof structure used or intended
to be used for entombment.
(26) [(20-a)]
"Memorial" means a headstone, tombstone, gravestone, monument, or
other marker denoting a grave.
(27) [(21)]
"Niche" means a space in a columbarium or cremains receptacle
used or intended to be used for the placement of cremated remains in an urn
or other container.
(28) [(22)]
"Nonperpetual care cemetery" means a cemetery that is not a
perpetual care cemetery.
(29) [(23)]
"Perpetual care" or "endowment care" means the
maintenance, repair, and care of all places in the cemetery.
(30) [(24)]
"Perpetual care cemetery" or "endowment care cemetery"
means a cemetery for the benefit of which a perpetual care trust fund is
established as provided by Chapter 712.
(31) [(25)]
"Plot" means space in a cemetery owned by an individual or
organization that is used or intended to be used for interment, including a
grave or adjoining graves, a crypt or adjoining crypts, a lawn crypt or
adjoining lawn crypts, or a niche or adjoining niches.
(32) [(26)]
"Plot owner" means a person:
(A) in whose name a plot is
listed in a cemetery organization's office as the owner of the exclusive
right of sepulture; or
(B) who holds, from a
cemetery organization, a certificate of ownership or other instrument of
conveyance of the exclusive right of sepulture in a particular plot in the
organization's cemetery.
(33) [(27)]
"Prepaid funeral contract" means a written contract providing for
prearranged or prepaid funeral services or funeral merchandise.
(34) [(28)]
"Remains" means either human remains or cremated remains.
(35) "Unidentified
grave" means a grave that is not marked in a manner that provides the
identity of the interment.
(36) "Unknown
cemetery" means an abandoned cemetery evidenced by the presence of
marked or unmarked graves that does not appear on a map or in deed records.
(37) "Unmarked
grave" means the immediate area where one or more human interments are
found that:
(A) is not in a
recognized and maintained cemetery;
(B) is not owned or
operated by a cemetery organization;
(C) is not marked by a
tomb, monument, gravestone, or other structure or thing placed or
designated as a memorial of the dead; or
(D) is located on land
designated as agricultural, timber, recreational, park, or scenic land
under Chapter 23, Tax Code.
(38) "Unverified
cemetery" means a location having some evidence of interment but in
which the presence of one or more unmarked graves has not been verified by
a person described by Section 711.0105(a) or by the Texas Historical
Commission.
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SECTION 7. Subchapter A,
Chapter 711, Health and Safety Code, is amended by adding Section 711.0111
to read as follows:
Sec. 711.0111. NOTICE OF
UNVERIFIED CEMETERY. (a) A person who discovers an unverified cemetery
shall file notice and evidence of the discovery with the Texas Historical
Commission on a form provided by the Texas Historical Commission, and shall
concurrently provide a copy of the notice to the landowner on record in the
county appraisal district on whose land the unverified cemetery is located.
(b) The landowner
described by Subsection (a) may send a response or comments to the Texas
Historical Commission concerning the notice not later than the 30th day
after the date the notice is filed.
(c) The Texas Historical
Commission shall evaluate the notice of the unverified cemetery, the
evidence submitted with the notice, and the response of the landowner, if
any, and shall determine whether there is sufficient evidence of the
existence of a cemetery.
(d) If the Texas
Historical Commission determines that there is sufficient evidence that a
cemetery exists, the Texas Historical Commission shall file notice of the existence of the cemetery under
the provisions of Section 711.011.
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SECTION 7. Subchapter A,
Chapter 711, Health and Safety Code, is amended by adding Section 711.0111
to read as follows:
Sec. 711.0111. NOTICE OF
UNVERIFIED CEMETERY. (a) A person who discovers an unverified cemetery
shall file notice and evidence of the discovery with the Texas Historical
Commission on a form provided by the Texas Historical Commission, and shall
concurrently provide a copy of the notice to the landowner on record in the
county appraisal district on whose land the unverified cemetery is located.
(b) The landowner
described by Subsection (a) may send a response or comments to the Texas
Historical Commission concerning the notice not later than the 30th day
after the date the notice is filed.
(c) The Texas Historical
Commission shall evaluate the notice of the unverified cemetery, the
evidence submitted with the notice, and the response of the landowner, if
any, and shall determine whether there is sufficient evidence of the
existence of a cemetery.
(d) If the Texas
Historical Commission determines sufficient evidence supports the existence
of a cemetery, the Texas Historical Commission shall inform the landowner and may file notice of the
existence of the cemetery under Section 711.011.
(e) If the Texas Historical Commission determines sufficient
evidence supports a determination that a cemetery does not exist, the Texas
Historical Commission shall notify the landowner on record in the appraisal
district of its determination, amend the notice to include the commission's
determination, and ensure any notice filed with a county clerk under
Section 711.011 is corrected.
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