If you bought a farm with an old cemetery on it, do you acquire title to that cemetery with a reservation for ingress/egress to and from the cemetery. Or does title to the cemetery stay with the heirs of the deceased until a court action has declared the cemetery abandoned leaving title and upkeep to the owner?
Any Kentucky case law to back up your opinion would be helpful.
Thank you
Matt
Many home cemeteries were never separated from the parent tract, why should it, most thought the land would remain in the family forever. Some owners although not disturbing the plots would not allow visiting. The only one I have dealt with was a family that wanted the Grandfathers wishes to be buried on the ranch to take place did call me for my input. I recommended a Partition because a cemetery is an allowed use of agricultural lands, along with the Partition, ingress and egress was provided to a public road to protect the plot from future problems in the event the lands were sold. A lot of old cemeteries those wanting to visit and to maintain graves are dependent on the goodwill of the landowners, mankind is a selfish beast and that goodwill should always be backed up with documentation to allow for normal visiting rights and the right to maintain the graves, even if there is no current problems, think of tomorrow. I tell people making provisions to share water or driveways to have an attorney prepare the documents as if they were blood enemy s, saves future unanticipated problems, ownerships change and new generations sometimes have hostile relationships with family. The cemetery noted above is used, so far about 10 family internments elsewhere were moved into it. There are about 20 spaces remaining.
jud
Matt,
I just took a quick look through the KAPS case law reference manual and found no helpful information specifically on cemeteries.
My opinion would be that title would be transferred to new owners UNLESS there was an exception/exclusion for the cemetery.
I have traced a couple back and found no exclusion so I show that land as part of the current deed with the cemetery location shown as such.
I have also traced some back that had an exclusion of the cemetery further back in the chain of title. On those, I reference the prior deed and the exclusion note and do not include it in the current deed's boundary.
