Can't bury my mum, as nobody knows grave owner.

[NameChangedForTheDay]

Hi all,

Not a AIBU, but shamelessly posting for traffic.

My mum died in April. She always said that when she died, she wanted to be cremated and returned to Liverpool and be buried in the same plot as her own mother.

I spoke to the cemetery. I learn that there's actually six people in that plot, including my mum's grandmother and some of grandmother's maternal family.

The issue I have is the cemetery has no record of who owns the plot and I need their permission to inter my mum's ashes. All they could give me was the address of the last person buried there in 2000. Sadly nobody by that family name lives at that address any more.

So I contacted the council, but they don't own the cemetery and told me to contact the Catholic burials phone number. But they have no record of who owns the plot either.

They did give me the name of the funeral directors that did the burial in 2000, but the funeral directors don't have records that far back.

I've also posted on a FB group in the area where the chap who died in 2000 lived, appealing for any of his family to come forward. So far, no replies.

Has anyone had this situation, or similar?

Is there anything else I can try?

My mum and I really didn't get on and weren't talking when she died due to alcoholism, but I do want to fulfill her final wish still.

Check the death certificates for the last person buried to see who registered the death?

Another vote for just popping them in yourself. We did this with my grans ashes into her mothers, as had been done with many of her sisters and brothers. You don't have to dig a 6ft trench, just deep enough to be secure, or scatter the ashes. Save yourself a lot of stress & hassle.

I know someone who um..... took matters into their own hands and just went and buried the ashes on the plot themselves (family grave). This was in a pretty big catholic cemetery in London. If no one seems to know who owns the cemetery it’s very unlikely that anyone’s going to say anything if you were to scatter or bury the ashes their yourself.

If you know the details of the people buried in there then can you request the death certificate as it may have the next of kin on there.

Sorry for the loss of your mum. Did you have a service at the cremation when she died? If so then surely that was sufficient. You don't need another ceremony at the graveside. If you and another relative/friend did scatter the ashes on the grave, or bury them under a plant on the grave, then you could still meet up with relatives for a meal afterwards in memory of your mum. Also you could still put a small stand alone marble plaque on the grave with wording 'in rememberance of xxx'. Doesn't necessarily mean the person is buried there (even though she will be). I've seen it on graves in Ireland where a relative died abroad and was buried abroad. So there are ways around it without trying to find the owner and spend money on reopening the grave.

You could have a gathering, with all the people who want to say goodbye, and plant some bulbs in her memory whilst there. If asked, the ash will act as a fertiliser .

I highly doubt anyone would stop you, and when it's done it's done. What are they going to do?

When you've had the "ceremony" I'm pretty sure you'll see that the current gravestone is looking a little bit shabby and needs repairs. ...What's one more name on it, when it's being repaired.

Hi OP I'm an ex funeral director, you could try seeing if the registrar has records of who recorded the death in 2000 then you might get a name.

It sounds like it's a Catholic churchyard in which case the church always owns the plot. In council ones the family effectively own the rights to it. So you could agree to sign a waiver saying you've tried to make contact. Am I correct that your grandmother is there? If you mum arranged her funeral and buried her there she may have rights herself although it may have been that she got permission from someone else.

Although without finding them it does leave you open to someone being unhappy in the future so would be much better to find someone.

I can't believe the funeral directors don't have records that far back, everyone I know kept them forever practically. Ask them to double check.

Thanks everyone.

Great idea about death certificate. The struggle I have is it's a common name and I only have the year of burial. Which may not be year of death. So I'm getting lots of results when I search.

But I will look deeper into that option.

I just did obituary search and got nothing.

OP, I have PMed you.

No stone mason I know will add a name to a plague without the proper paperwork (not saying it doesn't happen I've been tricked mislead by families before). With broken families you can imagine the arguments that ensue.
So please don't assume that can happen.

There's nothing to stop you going to the grave and scattering your mother's ashes there, digging them in, maybe planting something. Nobody is going to check. That's what I'd do if I could.

you are not allowed to scatter ashes in the sea, but i someone who did this surreptitiously

My sister took her partners ashes to his mothers grave and a plant,when she planted it she put his ashes under the plant, no one knew .

@Sickofpineneedles thank you so much for this valuable information.

Sadly my mum was only three when her mum died in 1958. My grandad died in 1997 too, although he was scattered in the Mersey and not buried there.

The cemetery is Catholic, but they said the plot (which has six people in it) will be owned by a relative of one of the deceased buried there.

I will try FD again. She said they only keep records for six years I think it was. GDPR.

Changed username as some of my family are on here and will recognize me. Don't want them seeing my other posts!

I had this problem. My Dad died in April. The idea had been that he would be buried in his grandmother's grave. His parents had bought the grave for her and him when he was just a boy. My Mam's ashes hadn't been interred yet as Dad couldn't bear to part with them. I wanted to put Dad and Mam in his grandmother's grave.
Even though I knew the grave owner - which was my deceased grandfather - I had immense difficulties getting the deeds transferred over to me and had to give up in the end. I had to prove that grandad's will had gone to probate and therefore my Dad owned the grave. Then I had to prove Dad's will had gone to probate (which it hadn't yet and still hasn't) and that I therefore had ownership of the grave. It was impossible. Consulted a solicitor - it was going to cost an arm and a leg so I gave up and bought a new grave for my parents, not too far away. My Mam's wish was to be scattered on her parents' grave which is just a few graves away from Dad's parents and grandmother. But Dad got very upset as Catholics are not supposed to scatter ashes - they have to be buried and in theory a priest shouldn't carry out a committal ceremony over a scattering.

So now both parents are buried together in a new grave.

I've written a lot - sorry. But you might find that even if you do find out who owns the deeds, if they are deceased you will have problems with getting the deeds transferred over to you and you may have no right to these deeds. If the person who now owns the grave is still alive they can give permission for you to bury your Mum's ashes there. However, it could be that the person who technically owns the grave due to inheritance hasn't had deeds transferred into their name and this is going to cost a lot.

As your Mum has been cremated the situation is not so urgent as it was with my Dad who had to be buried within a reasonable timescale so you could try some of the approaches mentioned above but have an alternative plan ready if you can't manage to sort it.

You could scatter the ashes on the grave. Nobody can stop you. An alternative would be to bury her ashes in the cremations section of the cemetery. She's not too far away from her mother then. Would she have wanted a priest present at a committal of ashes? That's another thing to consider - maybe talk to the priest at the church where you want to bury her for some options for ceremonies. Some priests will preside over scattering of ashes.

It's really hard when you want to honour their last wishes and can't. I told my Dad before he died (even though his death was sudden we had discussed this) that I would try to sort out the grave issue so he could be buried with his grandmother but I could not promise and he may have to go into a new grave with my Mam.

If it is a Roman Catholic cemetery then have you thought of messaging the relevant Bishop's office? www.liverpoolcatholic.org.uk/archbishop

explaining the circumstances and asking if there have been any solutions found previously where the plot's owner was untraceable?

Good luck.

I did a Great Escape style scattering of my mum's ashes, and it went un-noticed. There weren't 20 of us standing around trying to look inconspicuous though.

I have had to look into plot ownership after a family member contested my legal ownership of my mum’s grave.

In England, certainly in our district council, a plot is effectively leased and this has to be renewed. Over the years this gets forgotten, and with people moving home and no up to date owner’s address held the renewal is missed and ownership lapses.

While in ownership, if the owner passes away, ownership routinely passes to their legal next of kin, this can mean shared ownership between siblings too, so it can get very complicated over a period of time as you’re finding.

If the council defintely don’t own it, there should still be a way to resolve it with the cemetery management, I think it can just depend who you speak to. E.g., our records weren’t on file or computer either, my parish council told me they were lost. They weren’t, they had been transferred to the district offices for archiving. A fantastically helpful lady in the district council went into their archives and found the original old ledgers from the 1970s. She helped me prove ownership via inheritance.

Be persistent, the old records will probably be there somewhere, in one of the organisations so I would try again, but if they genuinely can’t be found, push them to find a way around it.

Failing that, I would go in a small group and discreetly scatter them, no one will notice. You can lay a small memorial plaque or flower holder on if you wish, as long as it’s not a fixed memorial you can place additional items.

If it's ownership has been unknown since 2000, is there any way you can claim it as closest living relative?

Try the deaths, funerals board on MSE, very knowledgable forums.moneysavingexpert.com/forumdisplay.php?f=217

No stone mason I know will add a name to a plague without the proper paperwork (not saying it doesn't happen I've been tricked mislead by families before). With broken families you can imagine the arguments that ensue.

I wasn't suggesting adding the name to an existing headstone. You can get a small stand alone plaque made. For all anyone knows it could be for a corner of ops garden where she plans to plant a rose bush for her mother. If there was anyone to contest it at a later stage it could always be removed easily. It's unlikely many people visit the grave if nobody in the church, council knows who owns it.

i'd just scatter the ashes.

I do think you'll need the grave papers to do anything headstone-wise, OP.

The Liverpool Echo has the largest obits page in the UK, are you sure no notices were placed? Have you tried their online search?

Not sure if anyone has suggested this yet - given there are so many family members already in there could you check a website like ancestry.co.uk and see if any relatives of anyone buried there are registered? It might help you trace someone with some knowledge.

salvation army do a search for missing people is it worth speaking to them?