Terms Used In Florida Statutes 497.277

  • Board: means the Board of Funeral, Cemetery, and Consumer Services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • Burial right: means the right to use a grave space, mausoleum, columbarium, ossuary, or scattering garden for the interment, entombment, inurnment, or other disposition of human remains or cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • Cemetery: means a place dedicated to and used or intended to be used for the permanent interment of human remains or cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • Cemetery company: means any legal entity that owns or controls cemetery lands or property. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
  • Department: means the Department of Financial Services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • merchandise: means any personal property offered or sold by any person for use in connection with the final disposition, memorialization, interment, entombment, or inurnment of human remains or cremated remains, including, but not limited to, caskets, outer burial containers, alternative containers, cremation containers, cremation interment containers, urns, monuments, private mausoleums, flowers, benches, vases, acknowledgment cards, register books, memory folders, prayer cards, and clothing. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • Processing: means the reduction of identifiable bone fragments after the completion of the cremation process to unidentifiable bone fragments by manual means. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • Purchaser: means a person who executes a preneed or an at-need contract with a licensee for merchandise or services. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • Rules: refers to rules adopted under this chapter unless expressly indicated to the contrary. See Florida Statutes 497.005
  • service: means any service offered or provided in connection with the final disposition, memorialization, interment, entombment, or inurnment of human remains or cremated remains. See Florida Statutes 497.005
Other than the fees for the sale of burial rights, burial merchandise, and burial services, no other fee may be directly or indirectly charged, contracted for, or received by a cemetery company as a condition for a customer to use any burial right, burial merchandise, or burial service, except for:

(1) Charges paid for opening and closing a grave and vault installation.
(2) Charges paid for transferring burial rights from one purchaser to another.
(3) Charges for sales, documentary excise, and other taxes actually and necessarily paid to a public official, which charges must be supported in fact.
(4) Charges for credit life and credit disability insurance, as requested by the purchaser, the premiums for which may not exceed the applicable premiums chargeable in accordance with the rates filed with the Office of Insurance Regulation of the Financial Services Commission.
(5) Charges for interest on unpaid balances pursuant to chapter 687.
(6) Charges paid for processing, filing, and archiving a cemetery sales contract and for performing other administrative duties related to the contract. However, these charges may not be imposed on a cemetery sales contract for the opening and closing of a grave or other burial right or for the installation of a vault in a grave for which burial rights were previously purchased. A cemetery company must disclose these charges to the customer and include them on its standard printed price lists and other disclosure information provided to the public under s. 497.282. These charges are not subject to the trust deposit requirements in s. 497.458. The department may, subject to approval by the board, adopt rules to administer this subsection.