Man threatens to sue over burial plot bungle
An 85-year-old Melbourne man is threatening to sue a cemetery after he discovered someone else was buried in the grave he purchased 42 years ago.
Dan Carrol bought the plot of land in 1973 for $100 - and he still has the receipt to prove it.
Due to an administrative error, the grave was sold off five years later and a new tenant was buried in 1981, News Corp reports.
When Mr Carroll went to inquire about selling off his cemetery real estate, he was was flabbergasted to learn that it no longer belonged to him - and had been home to a stranger for the past three decades.
Cemetery records show the grave was refunded to a Mr Aubrey Carroll on March 17, 1987 but Mr Carroll claimed he never received any money because Aubrey was not related to him.
The Greater Metropolitan Cemeteries Trust, which runs the cemetery, confirmed it had sent Mr Carroll a cheque for $1665.50 for the plot and considered the matter now closed.
Mr Carroll said the land is now worth more than double that amount - and has threatened court action if the trust refuses to pay up.
"I'm not prepared to accept that amount," he told NewsCorp.
"I'm 85, I could go at any time and I don't have a plot and I haven't got any money."
The trust's chief executive officer Jacqui Briggs-Wetherill said the original sale and resale was managed by another trust, but it had completed a full investigation into the burial plot bungle.
"Records indicate the plot was purchased in 1973 and relinquished five years later in 1978," she said.
"It was subsequently sold as an available plot in 1978. An interment took place in 1981 under the new Right of Interment."
She apologised for any distress that had been caused as a result of the mix up.
Morning news break – February 27
