(a) General rule.--When interment rights that have been granted by a cemetery company or association are not used for a period of 50 years or more, they shall be deemed abandoned and shall revert to the cemetery company or association if the procedure in subsection (b) is followed.

(b) Procedure.--A cemetery company or association shall send a registered return receipt letter to the owner of record, his or her heirs or assigns or any next of kin known to the cemetery company or association of the interment rights at his or her last known address requesting the owner's current address or the names and addresses of the heirs or assigns of the owner of record. If a written response is received, the records of the cemetery company or association shall be amended accordingly, and the interment rights shall not be deemed abandoned. The receipt of this written response shall guarantee the interment rights may not be deemed abandoned for 50 years from the date the written response was received by the cemetery company or association. If the registered letter is undeliverable or if no response is received within 30 days after the registered letter was sent, the cemetery company or association shall advertise a notice of its intent to declare the rights deemed abandoned in a newspaper of general circulation in the county where the cemetery is located and also in the county of the last known address of the owner of record, which notice shall contain the name and business address of the cemetery and the name of the last owner of record. If no response to the notice of intent to declare the interment rights abandoned is made on behalf of the owner of record or his or her heirs or assigns within 120 days, the interment right shall be deemed abandoned and shall revert to the cemetery company or association. If a written response is received, the receipt of this response shall guarantee the interment rights may not be deemed abandoned for 50 years from the date the written response was received by the cemetery company or association.

(c) Rights of owner of record.--If, within 30 years after the interment right has been abandoned, the owner of record or his or her heirs or assigns can prove to a cemetery company or association or a court of competent jurisdiction that he or she is entitled to the interment right, the cemetery company or association shall, at no cost, provide a right of interment similar to the one that was abandoned.