THE FAMILY PLOT HAS A VACANCY. SHOULD JUST ANY BODY FILL IT?
THE FAMILY PLOT HAS A VACANCY. SHOULD JUST ANY BODY FILL IT?
Grandpa bought five graves as part of a family plan. Decades later, the family moved, people married, somebody was cremated, somebody else was buried in another state—and one paid-for burial space is still sitting there. So who owns it, what is it worth, and does anybody actually belong there?
Think about this as a story about how a burial plot purchased as part of pre-planning can eventually become somebody else’s planning problem.
We’ll call them the Johnson family.
Grandpa Johnson buys five burial spaces in a Catholic cemetery in Minnesota.
At the time, the plan makes perfect sense: Grandpa, Grandma and three children.
FIVE PEOPLE. FIVE GRAVES. PROBLEM SOLVED.
There’s even a large family monument with one name across it:
JOHNSON.
Grandpa isn’t trying to become a cemetery real-estate tycoon. He’s trying to take care of his family.
GRANDPA PLANNED THE CEMETERY. LIFE CHANGED THE GUEST LIST.
Grandma dies first from a heart attack and is buried there.
One of the sons dies young and is buried beside her.
Grandpa eventually dies and joins them.
The older surviving son eventually moves to Florida. Years later he dies there, is cremated, and his family brings his urn back to Minnesota to be interred with his parents and brother.
Four of Grandpa’s five spaces have now served the basic family purpose he imagined decades earlier.
One remains.
That one was supposed to be for Sally.
Except Sally married, had children, moved to Florida, lost her husband and one of her children, and built her immediate family life there.
When Sally eventually dies, her children bury her there.
Nobody did anything wrong.
LIFE JUST DIDN’T HONOR GRANDPA’S RESERVATION.
😂
And now there is a paid-for burial space sitting in Minnesota that the person it was intended for will never use.
Now what?
FIRST QUESTION: WHO ACTUALLY OWNS THE EMPTY GRAVE?
That’s already more complicated than it sounds.
People casually say:
“Grandpa bought five cemetery plots.”
But in many cemeteries, what was purchased is not a piece of real estate in the normal sense. It is a burial or interment right governed by the cemetery agreement and applicable law.
The Catholic Cemeteries in Minnesota explains this directly: the purchaser is not buying the land itself, but the right to be buried in a particular space.
The Catholic Cemeteries: Who Owns That Grave?
And here’s where our Johnson story stops sounding unusual.
The Catholic Cemeteries actually published an example involving a great-grandfather who purchased five graves in the 1890s.
Generations later, descendants discover that several are still empty.
The cemetery then has to work through the family tree and the laws that applied when different relatives died to determine who now controls the burial rights.
YOUR FAMILY TREE CAN TURN INTO A TITLE SEARCH FOR A PARKING SPOT IN THE GROUND.
😂
The cemetery calls this kind of situation very common.
SO LET’S SAY THE JOHNSON FAMILY FIGURES OUT WHO CONTROLS IT
Great.
Now what?
- Give it to another relative?
- Sell it?
- Ask the cemetery to take it back?
- Donate it?
- Keep it available for another generation?
- Leave it empty forever?
And then there is another little problem.
WHO WANTS TO BE BOB SMITH UNDER THE JOHNSON FAMILY HEADSTONE?
😂
Let’s say the family can legally transfer the burial right to somebody outside the family and the cemetery approves it.
Fine.
Meet Bob Smith.
Bob sees an available burial space in a nice Minnesota Catholic cemetery. Maybe the price is attractive. Then Bob visits the grave.
And hovering over his future eternal address is a giant monument that says:
JOHNSON.
😂
Now imagine Bob’s great-grandchildren showing up 60 years later.
“There’s Grandpa Bob.”
“Why does the giant monument say Johnson?”
“Apparently there was a vacancy.”
But it illustrates something important:
AN ASSET CAN HAVE A PRICE WITHOUT HAVING MUCH OF A MARKET.
A burial space isn’t a bicycle.
You don’t photograph it, post “$2,500 OBO,” meet somebody Saturday morning and hand over the bike.
The cemetery, neighboring graves, monument, religious rules, transfer restrictions and state law all matter.
And the buyer has to actually want to end up there.
MAYBE THE BEST BUYER ISN’T A BUYER
This is where The Sales Freak in me starts arguing with himself.
I see an unused asset and immediately ask:
“What’s it worth?”
But maybe that isn’t the right first question.
Maybe another Johnson relative wants it. Maybe a cousin with a different last name, who never married, belongs there more than Bob Smith ever could. Maybe keeping it in the family is worth more than the cash.
And maybe…
THE BEST THING TO DO WITH THE EMPTY GRAVE IS NOTHING AT ALL.
I can’t believe The Sales Freak just wrote that.
😂
MAYBE THE EMPTY GRAVE DOESN’T NEED A BODY
Why do we assume that because Grandpa purchased five spaces, five bodies eventually need to occupy them?
Maybe four are enough. Maybe the fifth stays open because the vacancy itself tells part of the family story.
Sally was supposed to be there.
Then Sally’s life went somewhere else.
THE GRAVE STAYED IN MINNESOTA. SALLY DIDN’T.
That raises another question people rarely think about.
CAN SALLY STILL BE MEMORIALIZED IN MINNESOTA IF SHE’S BURIED IN FLORIDA?
Potentially, depending on the cemetery and the form of memorialization it permits.
There is even a word for a memorial to somebody whose remains are somewhere else:
CENOTAPH.
Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights, Minnesota, for example, has a cenotaph program where people who are not buried in its cemeteries can still be memorialized by name and dates.
Who knew? I thought this was an original idea at first.
The Catholic Cemeteries: Cenotaphs at Resurrection Cemetery
That doesn’t mean the Johnson family can simply order another marker and stick it on Grandpa’s lot.
The cemetery would have to tell them what is permitted.
But conceptually, imagine something that says:
SALLY JOHNSON
1948–2024
Buried in Florida
MAYBE THE EMPTY GRAVE DOESN’T NEED A BODY.
MAYBE IT NEEDS AN EXPLANATION.
THEN THE GREAT-GRANDKIDS SHOW UP
This may be the part families underestimate most.
Fast-forward another 40 or 50 years. The great-grandkids barely know anybody in the cemetery. A genealogy service tells them Great Grandpa Johnson apparently had a colorful past—maybe even some old gangster stories.
Ask them Great Grandma’s first name? Blank stare.
Then one day they actually go to the cemetery.
There it is:
JOHNSON.
Great Grandpa. Great Grandma. The sons. Dates. Names. Relationships that suddenly make sense.
THE FAMILY TREE JUST TURNED INTO GRANITE.
A cemetery can become the family archive nobody remembered they had.
And right beside Great Grandma…
BOB SMITH.
😂
“Who’s Bob?”
“Apparently Aunt Sally moved to Florida, so somebody sold Bob her grave.”
Maybe that changes how valuable the empty space looks.
AND MINNESOTA IS ONLY ONE STATE
Here’s where this gets much bigger than the Johnson family.
We are talking about one family, one Minnesota cemetery and a Florida burial.
But there is no single national rulebook that answers every cemetery question.
States have their own cemetery, inheritance, disposition, funeral and consumer-protection laws. Local governments can add another layer. Individual cemeteries have contracts and rules. Religious cemeteries may have additional religious requirements. Federal law touches parts of the funeral business too—but even the Federal Trade Commission says its Funeral Rule generally does not cover cemeteries unless they qualify as funeral providers by offering both funeral goods and funeral services.
Federal Trade Commission: Funeral Rule and Cemeteries
DEATH IS NATIONAL.
THE RULES AROUND IT CAN BE VERY LOCAL.
NOW MOVE THE SAME STORY TO COLORADO
Forget Grandpa Johnson for a minute.
Let’s call the next guy Larry Eisenberg.
Larry buys five burial spaces in Colorado 80 years ago.
Maybe it’s a Jewish cemetery.
Maybe it’s a secular community cemetery in a little rural town.
Same idea:
“This is where the family will be.”
Then eight decades pass.
The children scatter.
Somebody moves to California. Somebody gets cremated. Somebody changes religions. Somebody wants a veterans cemetery. Somebody wants no cemetery at all.
And one of Larry’s spaces is still sitting there.
Now add another twist.
The original cemetery board is gone. The caretakers are dead—maybe some are now permanent residents. 😂 The town or a cemetery district handles things now.
The cemetery is effectively full.
Nobody has opened and closed a grave there in 25 years.
The roads through the cemetery aren’t laid out the way the old paperwork describes them.
The current person at City Hall wasn’t alive when Larry bought the space.
NOW PULL OUT LARRY’S 80-YEAR-OLD PAPERWORK AND SAY, “WE’D LIKE TO USE GRAVE NUMBER FIVE.”
Maybe that’s easy. Maybe it isn’t.
That’s the point.
IN COLORADO, 75 YEARS CAN MATTER
Colorado makes the time issue especially interesting.
Current Colorado cemetery law includes a process under which a cemetery authority may begin reclaiming certain grave spaces that have remained completely unused and unimproved for at least 75 continuous years, subject to specific notice requirements and the owner’s opportunity to retain the rights.
Colorado law also says that modern cemetery transactions grant interment rights rather than conveying title to the underlying cemetery real estate.
Colorado Revised Statutes — see C.R.S. §6-24-112
That doesn’t automatically mean Larry’s fifth space is gone.
The details would matter.
- Was a memorial placed or the space improved?
- Was proper notice ever given?
- Who currently owns the rights?
- What do the old contract, current law and current cemetery rules say?
EIGHTY YEARS CAN TURN “GRANDPA BOUGHT A GRAVE” INTO A RESEARCH PROJECT.
AND IF IT’S A RELIGIOUS CEMETERY, ADD ANOTHER RULEBOOK
Larry’s situation could become more or less complicated depending on the cemetery.
A Jewish cemetery may have religious and cemetery-specific rules governing burial, monuments and transfers. A Catholic, municipal or private secular cemetery may have a different set.
And those rules can exist on top of state law rather than replacing it.
So:
“I OWN AN EMPTY GRAVE” STILL DOESN’T TELL YOU MUCH.
THIS IS THE PART OF PRE-PLANNING I DON’T LOVE
Now I’m putting on my The Sales Freak hat – again.
I am absolutely in favor of planning for death.
People die.
Nobody is getting out of here alive.
For real.
What I question is whether giving a cemetery money decades in advance for a particular hole in a particular piece of ground is always the best way to fund a problem that may eventually happen in another few decades or somewhere else entirely.
Grandpa Johnson and Larry Eisenberg both had good intentions. But both were trying to solve a future problem using today’s family, cemetery, management, and rules.
FORTY, SIXTY OR EIGHTY YEARS IS A LONG TIME TO ASSUME EVERYBODY IS STILL GOING TO WANT THE SAME PARKING SPOT.
😂
THE CEMETERY DOESN’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING WRONG FOR THE PLAN TO GO WRONG
This is important.
You don’t need an evil cemetery owner twirling his mustache.
Life itself can break the plan.
- People move.
- People marry.
- Last names change.
- Religious beliefs change.
- Families split.
- People choose cremation.
- People choose body donation.
- People die in other states.
- Cemeteries fill up.
- Management changes.
- Records get old.
- Roads and access can change.
- State laws change.
- Cemetery rules change.
The grave can sit perfectly still while everything around it changes.
THE PLOT STAYS PUT. THE PLOT TWIST DOESN’T.
THIS IS WHY I LOOK AT LIFE INSURANCE DIFFERENTLY
From my perspective, there is another way to pre-plan the financial problem without pretending you know every detail of the funeral decades in advance.
Life insurance.
Or a smaller final-expense or burial-insurance policy designed to provide a death benefit.
A life-insurance policy doesn’t reserve Grave #5 in Minnesota.
It pays a death benefit to the beneficiary when the insured dies, and a valid claim is payable under the policy.
NAIC: Life Insurance Consumer Information
Grandpa’s cemetery plan says:
“Sally will eventually need this particular grave.”
Insurance says:
“When Sally actually dies, there should be money available to the beneficiary to deal with the situation that exists then.”
Florida or Minnesota? Burial or cremation? Transport a body or an urn? Buy another cemetery space? Pay a funeral home?
And of course, life insurance creates another planning question: who did you name as beneficiary?
Because you’re trusting that person to respect your wishes.
If your instructions are, “Use this money to bury me,” you probably want somebody who isn’t going to collect the check, hop on a plane to Las Vegas and put your pine-box money on black.
😂
Money creates flexibility. The person controlling the money still matters.
PREPAYING CAN BUY A PLAN.
INSURANCE CAN BUY OPTIONS.
THAT DOESN’T MEAN PREPAID BURIAL IS STUPID
Some people know exactly where they want to be buried. Some families value being together. Pre-need arrangements can remove decisions from grieving relatives and may protect particular prices or guarantee particular goods or services, depending on the contract and state law.
And life insurance has its own realities.
Premiums have to be paid as required.
The policy has to be in force.
The death benefit has to be payable.
A beneficiary generally has to submit a claim and required documentation, so this is not the same thing as a stack of cash magically appearing at the funeral home five minutes after death.
My point isn’t that one tool is always good and the other is always bad.
My point is flexibility.
THE GRAVE WAS BOUGHT FOR A FUTURE THAT NEVER HAPPENED
That’s the Johnson story.
Grandpa bought Sally a grave in Minnesota.
Sally built her life in Florida.
When the day finally came, the family dealt with the reality that actually existed.
And Grandpa’s perfectly good empty grave became another stranded asset somebody had to figure out.
CASH DEALS WITH THE FUTURE THAT ACTUALLY DID HAPPEN.
Personally, I’d rather think hard about leaving the next generation money and clear instructions than assume I can predict exactly where everybody should be buried decades ahead.
That’s The Sales Freak’s opinion.
You may see it differently.
AND WE STILL HAVEN’T ANSWERED THE ORIGINAL QUESTION
What should the Johnson family do with Grave #5?
Sell it?
Transfer it to a relative?
Leave it vacant?
Ask whether the cemetery will take it back?
Use another approved memorial method to make sure Sally remains part of the family story?
Maybe the answer depends on what it’s worth, who wants it, what Grandpa intended, or what the great-grandkids may value later.
And maybe Bob Smith should keep looking.
😂
THIS IS WHY AN EMPTY GRAVE CAN’T ALWAYS BE A TWO-LINE CLASSIFIED AD
If somebody actually has one of these situations, they may need room to explain it.
- Who originally purchased the burial rights?
- Who is buried around the open space?
- What monument is already there?
- What paperwork exists?
- What has the cemetery said?
- Who currently controls the rights?
- Is the family looking for another relative?
- Are they exploring a transfer?
- Are they trying to sell it?
- Are they simply trying to figure out what the hell they own?
That’s a literal Grave Freak Parking Spot.
Photos. Documents. Family history. Cemetery information. The whole strange story. One URL.
The owner still has to work with the cemetery and follow applicable rules before any transfer or burial.
THE FAMILY PLOT HAS A VACANCY. SHOULD JUST ANY “BODY” FILL IT?
Maybe. Maybe not.
Maybe the vacant burial right is worth real money. Maybe it’s almost impossible to sell. Maybe a relative needs it, the cemetery wants it back, the law changed, management changed, or 80 years passed and nobody currently running the place has opened a grave in that section. Maybe the smartest thing is to leave it alone.
And maybe the bigger lesson is this:
PRE-PLANNING CAN BECOME SOMEBODY ELSE’S PLANNING PROBLEM.
Laws change. Rules change. Management changes. Roads change. Families change. The number of bodies changes.
But when somebody dies, one thing usually doesn’t:
SOMEBODY HAS TO FIGURE OUT WHAT HAPPENS NEXT.
That’s why I think one of the better planning questions may not always be:
“Where should I buy everybody a grave?”
It may be:
“WILL THERE BE MONEY AND INSTRUCTIONS AVAILABLE WHEN SOMEBODY ACTUALLY HAS TO MAKE THE DECISION?”
Because Grandpa can reserve the grave.
He can’t reserve the future.
THAT’S A GRAVE FREAK REALITY.
If you want to discuss planning with insurance, check out SalesFreak.com and my Annuity In A Box, which is a different type of insurance product designed to provide fixed income while you’re still on this side of the grave.
If you want to talk specifically about burial insurance or life insurance, drop me a line. I’m happy to answer questions about those as well. I’m licensed in New Mexico and Colorado to sell life insurance through several reputable carriers. If you’re elsewhere, I can connect you with someone in your area if it makes sense for your situation.
This Parking Spot is commentary and general information, not legal, tax or insurance advice. Cemetery ownership, succession, transfer, pre-need contracts, memorial rules and insurance requirements vary by state, cemetery, contract and individual circumstances. Verify current requirements with the cemetery, applicable state regulators, an attorney when needed, and the insurance company or licensed insurance professional involved.