N.M. Stat. § 58-17-3
Definitions.
As used in the Endowed Care Cemetery Act:
A. "affiliate" means a corporation that is related to another corporation by
shareholdings or other means of control and includes a subsidiary, parent or sibling
corporation;
B. "burial park" means a tract of land that has been dedicated to the purposes of
and used, and intended to be used, for the interment of remains in graves;
C. "care funds" means realty or personalty impressed with a trust by the terms of a
gift, grant, contribution, payment, devise, bequest or contract, and income accumulated
therefrom where legally so directed by the terms of the transaction by which the
principal was established;
D. "cemetery" means a place dedicated to and used and intended to be used for the
permanent interment of remains;
E. "cemetery authority" means a person that owns, operates, controls or manages a
cemetery or holds lands for burial purposes;
F. "columbarium" means a structure or space in a structure used, or intended to be
used, to contain cremated remains;
G. "cremated remains" means remains after incineration in a crematory;
H. "cremation" means the irreversible process of reducing remains to bone
fragments through intense heat and evaporation in a specifically designed furnace or
retort and includes a mechanical or thermal process whereby the bone fragments are
pulverized, or otherwise further reduced in size or quantity;
I. "crematory" means a structure of most durable and lasting fireproof construction
containing one or more specifically designed furnaces or retorts, used, or intended to be
used, for cremation of remains;
J. "crypt" means the chamber in a mausoleum of sufficient size to entomb the
remains;
K. "depository institution" means an insured bank, thrift institution or credit union;
L. "director" means the director of the financial institutions division of the regulation
and licensing department;
M. "endowed care" means the general maintenance of the cemetery area dedicated
to endowed care, including the cutting and trimming of lawns, shrubs and trees at
reasonable intervals, keeping all places where interments have been made in proper
order, keeping in repair the drains, waterlines, roads, buildings, fences and other
structures consistent with a well-maintained cemetery; "endowed care" includes
overhead expenses necessary for the foregoing purposes, including maintenance of
machinery, tools and equipment, compensation of employees for the performance of
duties related to endowed care, including reasonable payments for employees' pension
and other benefit plans, payment of reasonable and necessary insurance premiums, the
maintenance of necessary records of lot ownership, transfers and burials and the
administration of care funds in those instances where those administering the funds fail
or refuse to act;
N. "endowed or perpetual care cemetery" means a cemetery or that designated
portion of a cemetery for the benefit of which a care fund is established;
O. "entombment" means the permanent interment of remains in a crypt or vault;
P. "fraternal cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated, controlled or managed
by any fraternal organization or its auxiliary organizations, in which the sale of burial
space is restricted principally to its members;
Q. "grave" means a space of ground in a burial park intended to be used for the
permanent interment in the ground of remains;
R. "interment" means the permanent disposition of the remains by inurnment,
entombment or burial;
S. "inurnment" means placing cremated remains in an urn;
T. "lot", "plot" or "burial space" means space in a cemetery owned by one or more
individuals, an association or fraternal or other organization and used, or intended to be
used, for the permanent interment of the remains of one or more deceased persons and
includes adjoining graves, adjoining crypts or adjoining niches;
U. "mausoleum" means a structure or building of most durable and lasting fireproof
construction used or intended to be used for the permanent interment in crypts of
remains;
V. "municipal cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated, controlled or
managed by a incorporated or unincorporated political subdivision;
W. "niche" means a recess in a columbarium used, or intended to be used, for the
permanent interment of cremated remains;
X. "no endowed care cemetery" means a cemetery for the benefit of which no care
fund has been established;
Y. "plot owner", "owner" or "lot proprietor" means a person in whose name a burial
plot is recorded in the office of the cemetery authority as owner of the exclusive right of
burial, or who holds from the authority a conveyance of the exclusive rights of burial or a
certificate of ownership of the exclusive right of burial;
Z. "religious cemetery" means a cemetery owned, operated, controlled or managed
by a recognized church, religious society, association or denomination, or by a
cemetery authority or a corporation administering, or through which is administered the
secular matters of a recognized church, religious society, association or denomination;
AA.
"remains" means the body of a deceased person; and
BB.
"vault" means a container that is designed for placement in a grave space
around a casket or urn.