Can you be buried on your own property in BC?

What the answer means

BC law lets a body be buried only in a place of interment, so a family plot on a farm or acreage first has to become a cemetery: the owner applies to Consumer Protection BC for a certificate of public interest, which is noted on the land's title, and holds a cemetery operator's licence. Ashes are another matter.

Where a body may go

Human remains may be disposed of only by burial on land with a certificate of public interest registered against it, by cremation in a crematorium, or by burial on Crown land reserved for it under the Land Act (Cremation, Interment and Funeral Services Act s. 4). No one may set up a place of interment, or enlarge a cemetery, on land without a notice of that certificate in the Land Title Office (s. 23). A place of interment is a cemetery, mausoleum or columbarium (s. 1).

A family plot

The owner applies to a director, through Consumer Protection BC, for the certificate (s. 24), which checks the land is fit for burials and puts a notation on the title, then becomes a licensed cemetery operator and renews the licence each year; a non-commercial cemetery pays no renewal fee (Consumer Protection BC). Once set aside, the land can't be sold, leased or developed without special permission (Consumer Protection BC), so a family plot weighs on every later sale (our reading).

Ashes

Cremated remains aren't human remains under the Act (s. 1), so the rule above doesn't reach them. Scattering on private land needs the landowner's permission, and on Crown land and in provincial parks it's generally allowed with care for other users (Consumer Protection BC). Burying ashes in a marked plot is interment under the Act (s. 1), so whether a family urn garden needs the certificate too is unclear: ask Consumer Protection BC.

Old graves on the land

A cemetery stays one: an operator may convert all or part of a cemetery where rights of interment were sold to another use only with a director's approval, after notice (ss. 51, 52), and remains may be exhumed or moved only with a director's approval (s. 16). Burial places of historical or archaeological value, and any site from before 1846, are protected under the Heritage Conservation Act (see archaeological sites).

Zoning and the ALR

Neither the Act nor Consumer Protection BC's page says how zoning or the ALR bear on a family plot; ask the local government, and on ALR land the Agricultural Land Commission (our reading).

What it means for a buyer

A cemetery notation on the title stays with the land: read it before you buy, and ask who holds the operator's licence and who tends the graves. Unmarked graves can lie on old farm land: ask the seller and the neighbours what is known.

Our summary of the Cremation, Interment and Funeral Services Act (SBC 2004, c. 35, ss. 1, 4, 16, 23, 24, 51, 52) as consolidated on BC Laws, and Consumer Protection BC's pages "Can I be buried on the family farm?" (June 10, 2024) and "Where can ashes be scattered?" (July 21, 2025), read 2026-10-21. Consumer Protection BC decides each certificate.

Sources, read 2026-10-21 and summarised in our words unless marked otherwise: Cremation, Interment and Funeral Services Act, SBC 2004, c. 35; Can I be buried on the family farm?, Consumer Protection BC; Where can ashes be scattered?, Consumer Protection BC.

Before you buy: who to ask

The seller or their agent

Are there graves or scattered ashes anywhere on the land, marked or not, and does anyone hold a right to visit or tend them?

Your lawyer or notary

Is a certificate of public interest or a cemetery noted on the title, and what does it stop me doing with that part of the land?

Consumer Protection BC

What would a family plot here need, and does burying ashes in one need a certificate too?

Look up the lot above: its report names the zone and our summary of what it allows, and whether any of the lot is in the ALR.

See also archaeological sites, property records, covenants and the ALR.