Widow's battle to resell burial space underscores Metro Vancouver's real estate crunch

A little more than 25 years ago, John Douglas Carnahan bought the rights to two burial plots in the northeast corner of a hilly cemetery in a dense area of Burnaby, B.C. 

Back then, they cost $750 each. 

As years passed and space grew scarce, the cost of a single plot in the same cemetery surged to more than $10,000. 

After Carnahan's death at 91, his widow decided not to use the plots. Her battle for the right to sell the plots privately to any buyer at market value has now spilled over into B.C. Supreme Court in a case experts say again proves the region's real estate crunch is also squeezing its graveyards.

"We are running out of space, particularly in the Lower Mainland," said architect Bill Pechet, who's worked in cemetery design for roughly 30 years.

"Just like we have a housing crisis for the living, we're also encountering a housing crisis for those who want to be buried."

Carnahan bought both plots at Pacific Heritage Cemetery in March 1998. At the time, there was a clause in the purchase agreement saying cemetery directors "may" buy back owner's plots at the original purchase price.

Carnahan's widow, Sheila Carnahan, contacted the cemetery after her husband's death in 2021 to ask how she could go about privately selling the plots she no longer needed to a third-party buyer.

Her claim said staff told her in an email last October that, according to its bylaws, she could only sell her plots back to the cemetery for the original purchase price of $750 each.

Sheila Carnahan has argued the cemetery "misinterpreted" its own bylaws because the clause said cemetery directors "may purchase" plots back — not "must purchase."

"The claimants say that the position taken by the [cemetery], while invalid in law, effectively prevents a sale to third parties because the [cemetery] controls the ownership record and the operation of the cemetery, including the preparation of the grave for use," the lawsuit said.

"The [cemetery] could effectively prevent the new owner from using the plot."

The cemetery has not responded to her claim in court.

In B.C., buying a plot is just buying the right to internment, meaning a buyer is paying for the right to be buried in the space but not purchasing the land itself. Those rights are sold in perpetuity, so buyers can hold plots for however long they choose — unless a plot has been empty for more than 50 years and the rightsholder is more than 90 years old, in which case a cemetery can launch the complex process of applying to get the space back.