More on Burns Memorial Chapel
According to this story from The Detroit News, Burns Memorial Chapel had been under threat of eviction for over two years, and may have been operating without a license, as well as violating a court order. At least one family was making funeral arrangements the day before the eviction.
I spoke by email with Jessica Koth, Public Relations Manager for the National Funeral Directors Association, and asked for her thoughts on the issue. Is this foreshadowing a trend?
This seems to be a very isolated incident – we’ve not heard of the current mortgage crisis affecting funeral homes in the way that it has affected homeowners because commercial mortgages differ from residential mortgages. The economic climate has made businesses in all sectors of the economy wary about expansion, but I don’t think we’ll see a rash of funeral home foreclosures any time soon.
Evicting the Dead
A Pontiac, Michigan funeral home was evicted from their facility today. forcing the removal of 5 bodies and 22 sets of cremains by the county Medical Examiner.
House of Burns Memorial Chapel received the foreclosure eviction notice in January of this year. The court order allowed the eviction to begin at 3:00 AM, although the bank had been working with the ME’s office for “a couple of weeks” to make sure things were handled respectfully.
More from Google News. Will this be a trend? Reports suggest the funeral home had almost ten months to work something out with the bank, but I know that funeral homes often deal with families who are hard-pressed to come up with the funds for even a basic funeral service. It’s not uncommon for funeral homes to have payables running well over 180 days.
No updates this weekend; I’ll be out of town with one of my kids. See you next week.