35-21-828. Family plots. (1) Whenever the remains of the record owner or of a member of the owner's family or of a relative of a member of the owner's family have been interred in a plot transferred by deed or certificate of ownership to an individual owner and the owner has died without making disposition of the plot either in a will by a specific devise or by a written declaration filed and recorded in the office of the mausoleum-columbarium authority, the plot becomes inalienable and must be held as the family plot of the owner.
     (2) In a family plot, one crypt or one niche or interment space in the family plot may be used for the owner's interment and one for the owner's surviving spouse, if any, who by law has a vested right of interment in it. Of those crypts, niches, or spaces remaining, if any, the parents and children of the deceased owner in order of death may be interred without the consent of any person claiming an interest in the plot.
     (3) If a parent or child is not surviving, the right of interment goes in the order of death first to the spouse of any child of the record owner and second in the order of death to the next heirs-at-law of the owner or the spouse of any heir-at-law.
     (4) A surviving spouse, parent, child, or heir having a right of interment in a family plot may waive the right in favor of any other relative or spouse of a relative of the deceased owner, and upon the waiver, the remains of the person in whose favor the waiver is made may be interred in the plot.

     History: En. Sec. 15, Ch. 283, L. 1999.