(26) “Memorial” means a headstone, tombstone, gravestone, monument, or other marker denoting a grave. (27) “Niche” means a space in a columbarium, or a cremated remains receptacle used or intended to be used for the placement of cremated remains in an urn or other container. (28) “Nonperpetual care cemetery” means a cemetery that is not a perpetual care cemetery. (29) “Perpetual care” or “endowment care” means the maintenance, repair, and care of all places in the cemetery. (30) “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. (31) “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. (32) “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. (33) “Prepaid funeral contract” means a written contract providing for prearranged or prepaid funeral services or funeral merchandise. (34) “Remains” means either human remains or cremated remains. (35) “Unidentified grave” means a grave that is not marked in a manner that provides the identity of the interment. (36) “Unknown cemetery” means an abandoned cemetery evidenced by the presence of marked or unmarked graves that fail to appear on a map or in deed records. (37) “Unmarked grave” means the immediate area where one or more human interments are found that: (A) Is not in a recognized and maintained cemetery; (B) Is not owned or operated by a cemetery organization; (C) Is not marked by a tomb, monument, gravestone, or other structure or thing placed or designated as a memorial of the dead; or (D) Is located on land designated as agricultural, timber, recreational, park, or scenic land under Chapter 23, Tax Code. (38) “Unverified cemetery” means a location having some evidence of interment but in which the presence of one or more unmarked graves has not been verified by a person described by Section 711.0105(a) or by the Texas Historical Commission. (4) Either one of the decedent’s surviving parents; (5) Any one of the decedent’s surviving adult siblings; (6) Any one or more of the duly qualified executors or administrators of the decedent’s estate; or (7) Any adult person in the next degree of kinship in the order named by law to inherit the estate of the decedent. (a-1) If the person with the right to control the
(8) “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. (9) “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. (10) “Cremains receptacle” means a marker, boulder, bench, pedestal, pillar, or other aboveground vessel that contains niches for cremated remains. (11) “Cremated remains” or “cremains” 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. (12) “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. (13) “Crematory” means a structure containing a furnace used or intended to be used for the cremation of human remains. (14) “Crematory and columbarium” means a durable, fireproof structure containing both a crematory and columbarium. (15) “Crypt” means a chamber in a mausoleum of sufficient size to inter human remains. (16) “Directors” means the governing body of a cemetery organization. (17) “Entombment” means interment in a crypt. (18) “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. (19) “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. (20) “Human remains” means the body of a decedent. (21) “Interment” means the permanent disposition of remains by entombment, burial, or placement in a niche. (22) “Interment right” means the right to inter the remains of one decedent in a plot. (23) “Inurnment” means the placement of cremated remains in an urn. (24) “Lawn crypt” means a subsurface receptacle installed in multiple units for ground burial of human remains. (25) “Mausoleum” means a durable, fireproof structure used or intended to be used for entombment. Sec. 711.002. Disposition of Remains; Duty to Inter (a) Except as provided by Subsection (l), unless a decedent has left directions in writing for the disposition of the decedent’s remains as provided in Subsection (g), the following persons, in the priority listed, have the right to control the disposition, including cremation, of the decedent’s remains, shall inter the remains, and in accordance with Subsection (a-3) are liable for the reasonable cost of interment: (1) The person designated in a written instrument signed by the decedent; (2) The decedent’s surviving spouse; (3) Any one of the decedent’s surviving adult children;
disposition of the decedent’s remains fails to make final arrangements or appoint another person to make final arrangements for the disposition before the earlier of the 6th day
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