§27-17A-49. Endowment care fund deposits; qualification as endowment care cemetery.

(a) From the sale price of each plot, crypt, or niche sold by the cemetery authority, of an endowment care cemetery, it shall pay an amount, not less than as determined in accordance with the following schedule, to the trustee of the endowment care fund, which payment shall be paid over to the trustee not more than four months after the close of the month in which the total or final payment on the sale has been received:

(1) Fifteen percent of the sale price of each grave or lawn crypt space.

(2) Five percent of the sale price of each mausoleum crypt or niche.

(3) The amount received for special care funds, gifts, grants, contribution devises, or bequests made with respect to the separate or special care of a particular lot, grave, crypt, niche, mausoleum, monument, or marker or that of a particular family, as distinguished from the general endowed care of a cemetery or of a garden.

(b) In addition to subsection (a), a cemetery authority may receive, and transfer to the trustee, as a part of or incident to the endowment care fund, any property, real, personal, or mixed, bequeathed, devised, given, or otherwise contributed to it for endowment care purposes. Any contractual endowment care deposits shall fall under this article.

(c) Any cemetery authority which is organized and engaged in business prior to May 1, 2002, shall qualify as an endowment care cemetery if the following occur:

(1) Not already placed, it shall within 90 days of May 1, 2002, have placed the entire principal of any endowment care fund in its possession, custody, or control, into the hands of a qualified trustee designated by it, to be administered as set forth in this article; and principal of its endowment care fund, or the aggregate principal of its endowment care funds, if more than one, shall have a fair market value on either May 1, 2002, or on the date of transfer to the trustee of not less than twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000); or it shall substitute 25 percent for each percentage of each sale for the next five years or five thousand dollars ($5,000) per year, whichever is greater, until the balance of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) is reached. In such case, the entire amount of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) shall be paid into the fund before the end of the fifth year, and no interest may be removed from the fund until the twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) minimum has been reached.

(2) It shall at all times after May 1, 2002, comply with the minimum requirements for payments to the trustee for endowment care.

(d) Any cemetery authority organizing a cemetery after May 1, 2002, whether it be by incorporation, association, individually, or by any other means, or having its first burial after May 1, 2002, before disposing of any burial lot or right or making any sale thereof or making its first burial, or both, shall cause to be deposited with a qualified trustee, in cash, the sum of twenty-five thousand dollars ($25,000) in the endowment care fund.

(e) When a cemetery authority has placed with a trustee, pursuant to this article, a sum of money in excess of the aggregate which would be required only under subsection (a), the cemetery authority shall not be required under this article to make further payments to the trustee until such time thereafter as, taking into account all sales of plots, crypts, and niches in the cemetery property since the first of the sales, the aggregate of payments to the trustee if made in accordance with subsection (a) would equal the applicable minimum amount paid to the trustee under subdivision (1) of subsection (c), or subsection (d) of this section.

(f) Any deposit previously made, or represented to be made to an existing endowment care fund which exceeds 10 percent of the gross selling price of all plots, crypts, and niches sold since representation of endowment care shall be made a permanent part of the endowment care fund and transferred to the qualified trustee under this article.

(Act 2002-74, p. 221, §1.)