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Perpetual Care Registration Revoked for Cemetery in Greenwood
Greenwood, Miss.—The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office has revoked the Perpetual Care Registration for Hudson Park Cemetery in Greenwood, Mississippi.
State law requires perpetual care cemetery owners to deposit 15 percent of the sale price of each grave space sold into a perpetual care trust or CD. Interest gained on this money goes toward cemetery and grave site upkeep.
An Agency examination of Hudson Park’s perpetual care trust from June 2013 through April 2015 revealed a deficiency of $9,723. In August 2015, Xavier Hudson, Hudson Park Cemetery’s owner, entered into a Consent Agreement with the Secretary of State’s Office agreeing to a plan to shore up the trust. Hudson failed to meet deadlines in the Consent Agreement and violated a Final Order.
As a result of the registration revocation, Hudson Park Cemetery will no longer be able to offer grave spaces providing perpetual care. This means Hudson cannot represent to the public he will have funds set aside to take care of the cemetery in perpetuity. Hudson is required to notify customers of this limitation when they are purchasing a grave space.
“The Mississippi Secretary of State’s Office is charged with the statutory responsibility to enforce perpetual care cemetery regulations in order to protect citizens burying their loved ones,” Secretary of State Delbert Hosemann said. “We are notifying the public Hudson Park should not be representing it is a perpetual care cemetery.”
By law, all cemeteries in Mississippi not exempt from registration are perpetual care cemeteries and must register with the Secretary of State’s Regulation and Enforcement Division. Exempt cemeteries include those affiliated with or owned by churches or religious societies, established fraternal societies, municipalities, other political subdivisions of the State, or family and community cemeteries.
For more information about the regulation of perpetual care cemeteries in Mississippi, call the Regulation and Enforcement Division at (601) 359-9055.
