Undertaken With Love

Photo of Michigan state capitol by jimbowen0306

This state's status: Michigan restricts the right of families to care for their own dead. You may want to consider becoming a home funeral advocate working to remove these restrictions, as Joyce Mitchell successfully did in Utah. A good place to begin would be to contact Wendy Lyons or Erika Nelson.

Searchable Online General Statutes

Michigan Compiled Laws

Michigan Administrative Code Rules

Resources Specific to Funeral Law

Department of Labor & Economic Growth
Bureau of Commercial Services - Licensing Division
Board of Examiners in Mortuary Science (external link)

Department of Community Health (external link)

Michigan Funeral Law Q&A by Erika Nelson --Erika Nelson, M.S.W., is a Michigan Mortuary Science Licensee as well as a home funeral advocate. This is a great resource for funeral consumers.

In general, regulations promulgated by departments of health, such as required procedures in filing death certificates, must be followed by families caring for their own dead, while regulations promulgated by funeral service regulatory boards are binding only on funeral providers (but may affect home funerals indirectly to the extent that a family chooses to engage the limited services of licensed providers or in a few states is required to do so). 

Please help us develop this section by emailing us with other books or online sources specifically related to funeral law in Michigan.

Resources Specific to Home Funeral Laws

Please help us develop this section by emailing us with books or online sources specifically related to home funeral laws in Michigan. Since Michigan is one of the rare states that restrict the rights of families to care for their own dead, we would especially welcome a document that summarizes what these restrictions are, how they came about, and what if anything is being done to remove them.

Organizations and Individuals

Funeral Consumers Alliance chapters (external link). Because FCA chapters are composed of volunteers, their expertise and experience related to home funeral laws vary considerably from one to the next. All of them, however, welcome home funeral practitioners and advocates and are eager to learn from them. If you find that you are accumulating knowledge that is lacking in your closest chapter, why don't you volunteer to be its resource for funeral consumers on home funeral laws in your state?

Wendy Lyons is co-editor of Undertaken With Love and a home funeral advocate who resides in Lake Orion, Mich.

Erika Nelson, M.S.W. is a home funeral advocate and mortuary science licensee who resides in Ann Arbor, Mich.

Please help us develop this section by emailing us with the names of organizations and individuals that serve as noncommercial resources to families serving as their own funeral directors in Michigan. Please include contact information (phone, website, email).