Forms of final disposition: Cremation Part 3

Things you should know before you go:

Forms of final disposition continued: Cremation, Part 3
By Andrew Hodges
October 2007

This article will deal with the basic cost involved with cremation and what can be done with cremated remains.

As mentioned in previous articles, cremation can take place before a funeral service or after. Therefore, the funeral home's service fee will depend on what is selected. If a immediate cremation is selected, for example, the funeral home fee would include funeral staff performing the necessary tasks of transporting the person's body from place of death to funeral home and then to crematorium, required documentation, basic handling of the person's body, facilities for sheltering the person's body until time of transfer to the crematorium, supplies such as a cremation container or casket and/or urn and GST on the funeral home fee and funeral supplies.  For a complete listing of my funeral home service fees as an example, click on funeral costs.

As for the cost of cremation itself, it is considered an outside cost that most funeral homes can include on the funeral service contract. This cost includes the coroner's certificate for cremation (currently $75) and the cremation process at a crematorium. The current cost for a standard adult cremation at the crematoriums in London is: Mount Pleasant: $461.10, Woodland: $461.10 and Forest Lawn: $519.40. 

As for burying versus scattering the cremated remains, the question always comes up: "Are there any rules with scattering cremated remains?" The answer is yes. Technically, if someone wishes to scatter cremated remains at a certain place, permission must be granted by the property owner, regardless of if it is private or public space. If a family wishes to bury or scatter on their own property, for example, it is important to think about whether having future access to that location is important, as the property may be sold in the future. If that is a concern to a family, then cemetery burial is a way to have continued access.

 
Using the St. Marys cemetery as the example for options and cost, there are two options for cremated remains: purchase of a cremation plot, or burying cremated remains over an existing family casket burial plot. The cost of purchasing a plot in the "Cremation Gardens" is $424 for a town resident and $530 for non-resident. There is also an additional $185.66 charge added to the cremation plots at time of sale for the preinstalled concrete footing for the monument that allows for both flat and upright markers. The opening and closing fee for cremated remains (inurnment) is $318. Please note that the opening and closing fee for cremated remains is the same for town residents and non-residents. For burials on Saturdays, there is an extra $300 cost as an overtime fee for cemetery staff preparing the grave. Winter burials (between December 1 and April 15) can occur, but with an additional $125 winter interment fee.

Burying cremated remains over an existing casket burial plot is a good way to make use of cemetery property. However, the next of kin arranging the services must acknowledge on the cemetery information sheet that they are  the current owner of that cemetery property or have permission from the current rights holder to allow burial cremated remains in that spot. For a single plot that has a casket burial, the St. Marys cemetery allows for four cremated people to be buried above. The same opening and closing fee as in the cremation gardens applies.

When cremated remains are brought to a cemetery for burial, the proof of cremation certificate, issued by the crematorium, must be given to the cemetery caretaker.      

Two other options for cremated remains, that presently do not exist in the St. Marys Cemetery, are above-ground columbarium structures that have individual compartments, called niches, that hold one set of cremated remains. The other is a cemetery scattering garden where a designated area has a garden with trees and shrubs and, commonly, wood chips as ground cover. At the time of scattering, an area of the wood chips are raked back, the cremated remains are scattered, and then covered. The names of those in the scattering garden are usually on an adjacent memorial wall. Both of these options can be found in London and Stratford.