Burial in a Victorian public cemetery: the right and the authorisation

The right of interment

The permit, and the trust’s records

What the trust issues is a right of interment permit. The department’s page on the permit says trusts can use it when a right is bought, giving it to the purchaser and keeping a copy on record. It is the records that settle who holds a right: it rests only with the holders the trust’s records show, and the Cemeteries and Crematoria Regulations 2025 give trusts a number of record-keeping requirements for rights of interment.

Forever, or 25 years for ashes only

A place that can take bodily remains as well as ashes, such as a grave, vault or mausoleum crypt, must be granted forever. A place that can only take ashes, a niche wall or a rose garden for instance, may be granted forever or, where the trust offers it, for 25 years. Even a right granted forever can be cancelled if it has never been used: once at least 25 years have passed since it was granted, and the trust cannot find the holders after diligent enquiry, it may cancel the right, after publishing a notice in a local newspaper at least 14 days before. A holder who comes forward later is owed a refund based on what the same or a similar right costs now, less an administration fee, or an equivalent replacement right at no charge. Holders are responsible for keeping the trust up to date with their contact details.

A 25-year right runs out on a set date. At any point in the 25 years its holder may ask the trust to extend it by another 25 years, or to convert it into a perpetual right, on payment of the relevant fee. At least 12 months before it runs out, the trust has to take reasonable steps to tell the holder in writing. If the holder does nothing within the time the trust sets, the trust may disinter the ashes, dispose of them within the cemetery grounds and remove any memorial to them.

Identified veterans are an exception made in 2015: amendments that year ensure their ashes are not scattered when a limited tenure right ends, and are kept in perpetuity instead.

A right the state can change

Since the 2021 amendments to the Act, the Secretary has a discretionary power to vary a right of interment, or force its surrender, in limited circumstances. The department’s legislation page points to a separate page of its own on seeking the variation or forced surrender of a right held by another person.

The interment authorisation

The application

Form 1 goes to the trust with the supporting documents section 116(3) of the Act requires, such as the medical certificate of cause of death a doctor issues under section 37(2) of the Births, Deaths and Marriages Registration Act 1996. Body parts that are not foetal remains are applied for on Form 3, and foetal remains that are not a still-born child on Form 4; both need prescribed information from a prescribed person.

This is where the two permissions meet. The trust should always satisfy itself that the person who wants to use the place holds its right of interment, or has the holder’s permission.

The grant, and its conditions

A trust satisfied with the application must grant the authorisation, and it may attach whatever terms and conditions it considers appropriate. The Department of Health gives an example in its advice for people arranging a burial without a funeral director: conditions on the equipment used to lower a coffin into the grave.

On the day

Remains brought into a public cemetery for interment must be enclosed in a coffin, container or receptacle meeting regulation 34 of the Cemeteries and Crematoria Regulations, and labelled as regulation 35 requires. The trust, for its part, must comply with the regulations on burial depth, concrete-lined graves, interment in mausolea and the sealing of crypts.

Without a funeral director

For a death that does not have to be reported to the coroner, the Department of Health says its usual steps can be completed without a funeral director. Its guidance is plain about what arranging a burial that way means: a person arranging an interment without a funeral director takes on the responsibility for every legal requirement of the interment, health and safety included.

Coffins are sold direct to the public by several companies, and the department recommends checking that a coffin meets the Cemeteries and Crematoria Regulations before buying it. A death reported to the coroner follows the court’s own path, in which a funeral director applies for the release : see after a death is reported to the Coroners Court of Victoria. The dates that run through all of this, from the 25-year right to the 12-month notice, are gathered in time limits in Victoria’s funeral and cemetery rules.