An Act To Clarify the Use of Burying Grounds and Family Burying Grounds
Maine Legislature, Session 129, LD 1054
Committee: State and Local Government
Sponsors: BAILEY
Amends: 13 MRSA §1141, 13 MRSA §1142

Legislative Document
No. 1054
H.P. 777
House of Representatives, February 28, 2019
An Act To Clarify the Use of Burying Grounds and Family Burying 
Grounds
Reference to the Committee on State and Local Government suggested and ordered printed.
ROBERT B. HUNT
Clerk
Presented by Representative BAILEY of Saco.
Be it enacted by the People of the State of Maine as follows:
Sec. 1.  13 MRSA §1141 is repealed and the following enacted in its place:
§1141.  Grounds inalienable; description recorded
When a person appropriates for a burying ground a piece of land containing not more 
than 1/2 of an acre, that piece of land is exempt from attachment and execution, is 
inalienable and indivisible by the owners without the consent of all the owners and must 
be kept fenced or otherwise substantially marked and occupied as a burying ground.  The 
person appropriating the land shall cause a written description of it, under the hand of all 
the owners and attested by 2 disinterested witnesses, to be recorded in the registry of 
deeds in the county or district where the piece of land lies.  A piece of land appropriated 
under this section may be used only as a burying ground and is exempt from any 
minimum lot size, road frontage or other dimensional requirement of any land use 
regulation or ordinance.  The appropriation of a burying ground under this section does 
not create a lot or lots for the purposes of Title 30-A, section 4401, subsection 4.
Sec. 2.  13 MRSA §1142, as amended by PL 1991, c. 412, §1, is further amended 
to read:
§1142.  Family burying grounds
When a person appropriates for a family burying ground a piece of land containing 
not more than 1/4 of an acre, causes a description of it to be recorded in the registry of 
deeds of the same county or by the clerk of the town district where it is situated and 
substantially marks the bounds of the burying ground or encloses it with a fence, it is 
exempt from attachment and execution.  No subsequent conveyance of it is valid while 
As long as any person is interred in the burying ground; but, it must remain to may be 
used as a burial place by the person who appropriated, recorded and marked that burying 
ground and to by that person's heirs as a burial place forever.  If property surrounding a 
burying ground appropriated pursuant to this section is conveyed, the property is 
conveyed by the person who appropriated the property or by an heir of that person and 
the conveyance causes the burying ground to be inaccessible from any public way, then 
the conveyance is made subject to an easement for the benefit of the spouse, ancestors 
and descendants of any person interred in the burying ground.  The easement may be used 
only by persons to walk in a direct route from the public way nearest the burying ground 
to the burying ground at reasonable hours to the burying ground at reasonable hours using 
a reasonably convenient route established in the conveyance or, if a route was not 
established in the conveyance, in a direct route from the public way nearest the burying 
ground or using another route of equal convenience designated by the landowner.  A 
piece of land appropriated under this section may be used only as a family burying 
ground and is exempt from any minimum lot size, road frontage or other dimensional 
requirement of any land use regulation or ordinance.  The appropriation of a family 
burying ground under this section does not create a lot or lots for the purposes of Title 
30-A, section 4401, subsection 4.
SUMMARY
This bill clarifies the law relating to the use of burying grounds and family burying 
grounds.  It requires that the description of a burying ground or family burying ground be 
recorded only in the registry of deeds and not with the town clerk.  The bill also allows 
property surrounding a family burying ground to be conveyed as long as reasonable 
access, including the establishment of an easement route, is provided to the spouse, 
ancestors and descendants of persons interred there.