H CHAPTER 4. An Act respecting Cemetery Companies. [Assented to 21st December, 1923.] IS MAJESTY, by and with the advice and consent of the Legislative Assembly of the Province of British Columbia, enacts as follows: Short Title. 1. This Act may be cited as the "Cemetery Companies Act." Interpretation. 2. In this Act, unless the context otherwise requires:- "Lot" includes plot and burial-site. Formation of Company. Short title. Expressions interpreted. company. 3. Any five or more persons may form an incorporated company Formation of under this Act for the purpose of establishing and maintaining a public cemetery without the limits of a municipality incorporated as a city or city municipality by or under any general or special Act of the Legislature. 4. (1.) The persons desiring to form the company shall:- (b.) Subscribe therein for shares of the company to an amount Requirements. Certificate of incorporation. Effect of incorporation. Power to sue and contract. Powers as to Lots to be Indivisible, but may be held in undivided shares. Application of proceeds of sales of lots. (c.) Transmit to the Registrar of Joint-stock Companies the instrument in duplicate and a receipt from such person for the amount so paid to him in trust. (2.) Upon compliance with those requirements the Registrar shall file one duplicate and issue under his seal of office a certificate showing that the company is incorporated and the place where the cemetery will be, and shall return the other duplicate certified as having been filed with him. 5. From the date of the certificate of incorporation the subscribers to the instrument, and such other persons as may from time to time become shareholders in the company, shall be a body politic and corporate by the name therein described, having perpetual succession and a common seal, with the powers and subject to the provisions in this Act contained. Powers of Companies. 6. A company may sue and be sued, contract and be contracted with in its corporate name. 7. (1.) For the purposes of its cemetery a company may acquire, hold, improve, develop, manage, and dispose of any real and personal property, and may subdivide any land into lots of any size for burialsites and sell and convey the same by deed according to the form in Schedule B. (2.) No company shall sell or convey any lot unless payment in full therefor is made to the company. (3.) The provisions of the "Land Registry Act" shall not apply to the subdivision by a company of any land for the purposes of a cemetery, nor shall it be necessary to register under that Act the title to any lot in the cemetery conveyed by the company. (4.) No judgment, mortgage, or encumbrance shall subsist on any lot so conveyed by the company. 8. Every lot in a cemetery, when numbered and conveyed by a company for a burial-site, shall be indivisible, but may afterwards. be held and owned in undivided shares. 9. (1.) One-half of the proceeds of all sales of lots made by a company shall be first applied to payment for the land acquired by the company. (2.) Subject to subsection (1) and to section 21, the proceeds of all sales of lots made by a company shall be applied to the preservation, improvement, and embellishment of the land as a cemetery and to the incidental expenses of the company, and to no other purpose whatever. on land used for 10. (1.) The land of a company used for a cemetery shall not Payment of taxes at any time be assessed or taxed under this or any other Act at cemetery. a higher value or rate than the assessed value and rate fixed at the time when the land was purchased by the company, and shall not be liable to be seized or sold on execution. (2.) The company shall be deemed the assessed owner of such land, and shall be liable for all taxes payable in respect thereof to the extent and in the manner provided in this section. (3.) Every company shall file with the Minister of Finance a subdivision plan showing the roads, paths, and lots in its cemetery, the area of each lot, the total area of the roads and paths, and the total area of the land in the cemetery; and upon the sale of any lot the company shall forthwith deposit with the Minister of Finance a capital sum which at four per centum per annum will produce a sum which bears the same proportion to the total amount of taxes in respect of the land in the cemetery at the assessed value and rate fixed at the time when it was purchased by the company as the area of the lot sold bears to the total area of the land in the cemetery, the area of the lot sold being increased for the purposes of this calculation by adding thereto an area which bears the same proportion to the area of the lot as the total area of the roads and paths in the cemetery bears to the total area of the land in the cemetery. (4.) The money so deposited with the Minister of Finance shall be credited to a fund to be known as the "Cemetery Tax Fund," and shall be accounted for as part of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. The money shall bear interest, payable by the Minister of Finance, at the rate of four per centum per annum, and where the land is situate within a municipality the interest shall be paid over by him each year as taxes to the municipality, and where the land is situate in unorganized territory the interest shall form part of the Consolidated Revenue Fund. (5.) No company shall be required to make any deposit in respect of any lot in its cemetery sold prior to the seventeenth day of April, 1920; nor shall any company be required to make any deposit in respect of any lot furnished under section 16. Duties. 11. Every company shall, by walls or other sufficient fences, Cemetery to be enclose every part of its cemetery, and, where the cemetery is within a municipality, the walls or other sufficient fences shall be of such height as the municipality may by by-law direct. enclosed. kept in good order. 12. Every company shall, out of the moneys received by virtue Cemetery to be of this Act, keep its cemetery, and the buildings and fences thereof, in good order and condition. 13. Every company shall make and keep in good order and con- Cemetery to be dition all proper and necessary sewers and drains in and about its properly drained. Burial in vaults, etc., prohibited. Burials to be decently conducted. Graves to be furnished gratis for strangers and poor. Shareholders. Shares. Liability of shareholders Shareholder's interest transferable. Voting rights. No dividend or profits to be paid to shareholders. cemetery for keeping it dry; and may connect any such sewer or drain with an existing sewer, with the consent in writing of the persons having the management of the street or road, and with the like consent of the owner or occupier of the land in or through which the sewer or drain is intended to be made, doing as little damage as possible to the street, road, or land wherein the same is made, and restoring it to the same or as good condition as it was in before being disturbed. 14. No company shall bury or permit the burial of a body under or within fifteen feet of any chapel or building in its cemetery, whether in a vault or otherwise. 15. All burials within a cemetery shall be conducted in a decent and solemn manner, and every company shall make regulations accordingly. 16. Every company shall furnish graves in its cemetery for strangers and for the poor of all denominations, free of charge, subject, in the latter case, to the production of a certificate of a minister or clergyman of the denomination to which the deceased belonged, or the Mayor or Reeve of the municipality where the relatives of the deceased reside, or of a Justice of the Peace, that the relatives of the deceased are poor, and cannot afford to purchase a lot in the cemetery. Shares and Shareholders. 17. (1.) The shareholders of a company shall consist of the subscribers of the instrument prescribed by section 4 and every owner of a lot in its cemetery which contains at least one hundred superficial feet. (2.) Every lot which contains at least one hundred superficial feet shall be deemed to be a share in the company. 18. Subject to section 31, the liability of a shareholder of a company shall be limited to the amount unpaid on any share held by him. 19. Subject to section 8, the interest of a shareholder in a company shall be transferable. 20. Every shareholder of a company shall be entitled at all general meetings to one vote for each share held by him up to ten, and an additional vote for every five shares beyond the first ten. 21. No dividend or profit of any kind shall be paid by a company to any shareholder: Provided that out of the proceeds of lots sold by it, the company may pay to a shareholder who does not desire. to take land in the cemetery to the full extent of the amount of the shares subscribed for and paid by him, interest on the amount not represented by land in the cemetery at such rate as may be agreed |