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Texas Statutes (Last Updated: January 4, 2014) |
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HEALTH AND SAFETY CODE |
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Title 8. DEATH AND DISPOSITION OF THE BODY |
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Subtitle C. CEMETERIES AND CREMATORIES |
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Chapter 711. GENERAL PROVISIONS RELATING TO CEMETERIES |
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Subchapter A. GENERAL PROVISIONS |
Sec. 711.001. DEFINITIONS
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In this chapter:
(1) "Burial park" means a tract of land that is used or intended to be used for interment in graves.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(6) "Cremated remains" 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.
(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.
(8) "Crematory" means a structure containing a furnace used or intended to be used for the cremation of human remains.
(9) "Crematory and columbarium" means a durable, fireproof structure containing both a crematory and columbarium.
(10) "Crypt" means a chamber in a mausoleum of sufficient size to inter human remains.
(11) "Directors" means the governing body of a cemetery organization.
(12) "Entombment" means interment in a crypt.
(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.
(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.
(15) "Human remains" means the body of a decedent.
(16) "Interment" means the permanent disposition of remains by entombment, burial, or placement in a niche.
(17) "Interment right" means the right to inter the remains of one decedent in a plot.
(18) "Inurnment" means the placement of cremated remains in an urn.
(19) "Lawn crypt" means a subsurface receptacle installed in multiple units for ground burial of human remains.
(20) "Mausoleum" means a durable, fireproof structure used or intended to be used for entombment.
(20-a) "Memorial" means a headstone, tombstone, gravestone, monument, or other marker denoting a grave.
(21) "Niche" means a space in a columbarium used or intended to be used for the placement of cremated remains in an urn or other container.
(22) "Nonperpetual care cemetery" means a cemetery that is not a perpetual care cemetery.
(23) "Perpetual care" or "endowment care" means the maintenance, repair, and care of all places in the cemetery.
(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.
(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.
(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.
(27) "Prepaid funeral contract" means a written contract providing for prearranged or prepaid funeral services or funeral merchandise.
(28) "Remains" means either human remains or cremated remains.