Undertaken With Love

Photo of Utah state capitol by karmadude

This state's status: Utah no longer restricts the right of families to care for their own dead, thanks to our own Joyce Mitchell, who almost single-handedly reversed a 2006 statute that did. The national Funeral Consumers Alliance website has posted an article about this milestone reversal.

Searchable Online General Statutes

Utah Code

Resources Specific to Funeral Law

Board of Funeral Service (external link)

Department of Health (external link)

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).

Resources Specific to Home Funeral Laws

Lucky Utahns! As of May 2009, the Utah Office of Vital Records and Statistics has a publication for families conducting home funerals that clearly lays out their legal rights and responsibilities, available as a PDF download.

Organizations and Individuals

Funeral Consumers Alliance of Utah (external link)

Joyce Mitchell is a contributing writer to Undertaken With Love and a source of information about Utah's laws as they relate to home funerals.

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 Utah. Please include contact information (phone, website, email).