Think a “perpetual care” contract on a loved one’s grave means they will be taken care of forever? <\/p>\n
Think again.<\/p>\n
My American Heritage Dictionary defines “perpetual” as “lasting for eternity.”<\/p>\n
But the U.S. cemetery industry has a different definition: “until the money runs out.”<\/p>\n
When I signed an agreement for perpetual care of my father’s grave, I thought it would be maintained — well, forever.<\/p>\n
But according to the NY State Cemetery Board, the cemetery may ask you for more money — or refuse to continue upkeep on the grave.<\/p>\n
They can do so when the yield on your original fee for the service (the money is deposited in a special fund) does not generate enough income to provide adequate care.<\/p>\n
Is this merely a matter of contractual fine print?<\/p>\n
Or is the term “perpetual care” false advertising?<\/p>\n
P.S. I was once called by a cemetery who wanted me to write an ad for them. <\/p>\n
This headline immediately popped into my mind:<\/p>\n
“DEAD?”<\/p>\n
Of course it was not the one we used….<\/p>\n
Source: NY Daily News, 11\/28\/06, p. 45.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Think a “perpetual care” contract on a loved one’s grave means they will be taken care of forever? Think again. My American Heritage Dictionary defines “perpetual” as “lasting for eternity.” But the U.S. cemetery industry has a different definition: “until the money runs out.” When I signed an agreement for perpetual care of my father’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1848,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-213","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1848"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=213"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/213\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=213"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=213"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bly.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=213"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}