12-701 Abandonment; failure to maintain; presumption; reversion; notice; service. - Nebraska Statutes

12-701. Abandonment; failure to maintain; presumption; reversion; notice; service.(1) The ownership of or right in or to an unoccupied cemetery lot or part of a lot in any cemetery in the state shall, upon abandonment, revert to the city, village, township, or cemetery association having the ownership and charge of the cemetery containing such lot or part of a lot. The continued failure to maintain or care for a cemetery lot or part of a lot for a period of ten years shall create and establish a presumption that the same has been abandoned. Abandonment shall not be deemed complete unless, after such period of ten years, there shall be given by the reversionary owner to the owner of record or, if he or she be deceased or his or her whereabouts unknown, to the heirs of such deceased person, as far as they are known or can be ascertained with the exercise of reasonable diligence, or to one or more of the near relatives of such owner of record, whose whereabouts are unknown, notice declaring the lot or part of a lot to be abandoned. This notice shall be served as provided by subsection (2) of this section.(2) The notice, referred to in subsection (1) of this section, may be served personally upon the owner or his or her heirs or near relatives or may be served by the mailing of the notice by either registered or certified mail to the owner or to his or her heirs or near relatives, as the case may be, to his, her, or their last-known addresses. In the event that the addresses of the owner and his or her heirs and near relatives are unknown or cannot be found with reasonable diligence, the notice of such abandonment shall be given by publishing the same one time in a legal newspaper published in and of general circulation in the county or, if none is published in the county, in a legal newspaper of general circulation in the county in which the cemetery is located. SourceLaws 1935, c. 26, § 1, p. 120; C.S.Supp.,1941, § 13-701; R.S.1943, § 12-701; Laws 1953, c. 18, § 1, p. 85; Laws 1955, c. 19, § 1, p. 94; Laws 1957, c. 242, § 5, p. 819; Laws 1963, c. 39, § 2, p. 211; Laws 1986, LB 960, § 6.