Last October we brought you a story about an Austin, Texas, funeral home where the Texas Department of Banking (TDB) had opened an investigation.  You can read about that story concerning the Austin-Peel and Son Funeral Home here.

The investigation was opened because the TDB had reason to believe that the funeral home had illegally sold prepaid funeral benefit contracts.  As it turns out, the company had collected over $500,000 in preneed payments and the TDB reported that the funeral home had only $3,000 left in the accounts.

On November 6, 2018, the Texas Department of Banking issued a consent order in the amount of a full restitution of $524,780.  As this article and news story from Austin’s KXAN reports, that money was paid to TDB on February 28, 2019.  The State of Texas will now issue full restitution to all affected consumers.

It turns out that the Austin-Peel and Son Funeral Home was sold and part of the purchase price will be used to issue these full reimbursements.

The Texas Department of Banking said that this was not the usual outcome to these types of cases.  According to the article, Stephanie Newberg Deputy Commissioner of the TDB stated, “We are very pleased.  Coming up with a half a million dollars, we just weren’t really positive that that was going to happen.  We’re just really, really thankful that this was a positive outcome.”

According to the article, the Austin-Peel and Son Funeral Home was purchased by Charles L. Villasenor II, the president of Mission Funeral Homes.

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