Any city, town, corporation, association, or trustees having ownership and charge of a cemetery that is located in a city, or town in a county, as provided in § 57-39.2, may file a petition in the circuit court within whose jurisdiction the cemetery is situated, setting forth its ownership of the cemetery and facts relating to the continued failure by the owner of an unoccupied cemetery lot in such cemetery to maintain and care for such lot for at least 30 consecutive years immediately preceding, and requesting an order adjudging any such lot to be abandoned. Upon the filing of such petition, the court upon proper motion shall set a date for a hearing.
1962, c. 264; 1964, c. 111; 1986, c. 118; 2020, c. 669.
Structure Code of Virginia
Title 57 - Religious and Charitable Matters; Cemeteries
§ 57-22. Conveyance of land to trustees or local governing body for cemetery use
§ 57-23. Appointment, change or removal of trustees
§ 57-24. Powers and duties of trustees
§ 57-24.1. Trustee for purpose of suit
§ 57-25. Condemnation of land for cemeteries
§ 57-26. Restrictions as to location of cemeteries and as to quantity of land
§ 57-27. City of Richmond may prohibit burials in certain cemeteries
§ 57-27.2. Correction of interment errors
§ 57-27.3. Authorization for interment
§ 57-28. Cities and counties may establish
§ 57-30. Funds from sale of lots and for perpetual upkeep
§ 57-32. Who may hold such property
§ 57-34. Amount to defray original cost not limited
§ 57-35. Trusteeship for administering funds for perpetual care
§ 57-35.36. Cemeteries owned by localities; good faith effort required prior to interment
§ 57-35.37. Sale of cemeteries owned by a locality; required notice to descendants of original owner
§ 57-36. Abandoned or previously unidentified graveyards may be condemned; removal of bodies
§ 57-37. Costs of suits, removal and reinterment; how surplus above costs disposed of
§ 57-38. Exemption from §§ 57-36 and 57-37
§ 57-39. Proceedings for removal of remains and sale of land vacated
§ 57-39.1. Improvement of abandoned and neglected graveyards
§ 57-39.1:1. Recovery of abandoned interment rights; procedure; rights of owner of record
§ 57-39.2. Reversion of unoccupied cemetery lots in cities and certain towns; rebuttable presumption
§ 57-39.3. Proceedings; determination of abandonment
§ 57-39.4. Notice to owner of record; publication
§ 57-39.5. Judicial determination; conveyance of title
§ 57-39.6. Sale of abandoned cemetery lot
§ 57-39.7. Applicability; abandonment determination limited in certain circumstances
§ 57-39.19. Application of §§ 54.1-2818.1 through 54.1-2818.3
§ 57-39.21. Duty to file declaration of land use restriction
§ 57-39.22. Certain representations unlawful; perpetual care trust fund required
§ 57-39.23. Change of address required from owner of burial right