I read a short article and watched a newsclip the other day about a situation that has happened at a cemetery in Alexandria, Virginia.  I’m certain that this situation is not unique and many cemeteries have or will find themselves in the same situation at some time.

That situation is about inadvertently selling the same grave space more than once.  When you consider how long cemeteries operate, that they have changing boards and/or owners, and that records have been kept by hand for so long, it is inevitable that there are some honest mistakes.  However, even honest mistakes need to find a solution and many times it is difficult to reach one acceptable to both sides.

The situation I refer to can be found here and relates to a couple who bought cemetery lots near other relatives.  A year later they went to visit the relatives’ graves and, lo and behold, there was already a body in the graves that they believed they owned.  To compound matters, it appears that this particular cemetery has been sold a couple of times and it seems that no one wants to take responsibility or work with the consumer.

The article says that Maryland has an Office of Cemetery Oversight, Virginia has a cemetery board, and D.C.’s Department of Consumer and Regulatory Affairs takes complaints for every and any consumer problem.  However, all any of those boards can do is put the consumer together with the business and try to have them work out some type of agreement.

Funeral Director Daily take:  I once served on a community non-profit cemetery board as a volunteer.  We had this same type of issue at one time.  It came from the cemetery superintendent selling the same grave twice because he had forgot to write the first sale down in his “Master Grave Log”.  Eventually he realized he had issued deeds to both families.  Luckily for the cemetery, the person with the earlier deed died first and was buried — state law actually gave that person the right for burial as the law stated that the grave was not “legally” available for sale to the 2nd party because it had already been sold.

As you can expect this came to light when the 2nd family went out to look at the grave spaces and saw someone buried there.  Even with the law on our side and the cemetery’s offer of refunding their money and giving them two free lots in the cemetery — they were not happy.

So, you can see how a situation like this can cause problems.  My best advice is that you check and re-check every time a lot is sold to make sure that there was not a mistake.  That being said, because we are humans, we will make some mistakes.  And, when one happens, it will not be a fun exercise correcting it.

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