This bill creates a new law in Title 68 RCW by adding a new chapter and a statutory definition for "family burial ground," authorizing a natural person to designate privately owned land for in-ground burial. It requires written consent of all natural-person co-owners to establish a family burial ground, prohibits establishment on property co-owned by a mix of natural persons and legal entities, limits a family burial ground to no more than 10 percent of the parcel, and sets minimum setbacks (25 feet from parcel boundaries, not within 150 feet of a designated critical area, and not within 50 feet of an existing easement or public right-of-way). Property owners may not offer plots for sale or charge fees for burial-related goods or services. Every burial must be recorded with the county auditor within 30 days and grave coordinates must be verified by two witnesses or by the county coroner, sheriff, or a designee; owners must disclose the existence of a family burial ground to prospective buyers before sale. The bill also amends existing statutes (RCW 68.05.400, 68.20.010, 68.20.140, and 68.50.130) to recognize family burial grounds and to exempt them from certain provisions of current law. It authorizes cities and counties to regulate or prohibit establishment or extension of family burial grounds and to delegate review to local planning commissions. The act clarifies that disposition of human remains outside a cemetery is generally a misdemeanor except when done in a cemetery, a family burial ground, or a building dedicated exclusively for religious purposes, and it allows disposition after cremation, alkaline hydrolysis, or natural organic reduction on private property with owner consent and on public or government lands or waters with agency approval. These are primarily new-law creations and procedural changes with statutory exemptions and a clarification of the misdemeanor exception. Affected parties identified include county auditors (recording burials), county coroners and sheriffs (verification duties), cities and counties and their planning commissions (regulatory authority), property owners and co-owners, cemetery operators, and government agencies with jurisdiction over public lands or waters. The extracted text shows the new chapter cited as chapter 68.--RCW (a placeholder) and references a new chapter created in section 11, but the exact chapter number and any provisions beyond sections 1–11 are not provided here; other enforcement details, penalty specifics beyond the misdemeanor clarification, or administrative procedures that may appear elsewhere in the bill are not included in the extracted facts.

If enacted, the bill creates a clear new option for individual landowners to set aside part of their private property as a "family burial ground" subject to size, setback, and proximity limits and to rules that bar selling plots or charging for burial-related services. Owners would have to record each burial with the county auditor within 30 days, have grave coordinates verified, get written consent from any natural-person co-owners, and disclose the burial ground to prospective buyers, which will add administrative steps and potential small costs (recording fees, time for coordination) and could affect how easily the property can be sold or developed. The groups most affected are private property owners who might create or inherit such burial grounds, county auditors (more records to file and store), and county coroners or sheriffs (possible added duty to verify coordinates), plus city and county governments and planning commissions that can choose to regulate or ban these sites and will need to adopt and enforce local rules. The bill gives local governments new authority but also likely adds modest workload and administrative costs for county offices; the text provided does not show the final chapter number or fuller enforcement and administrative details beyond a misdemeanor reference, so some implementation specifics and potential costs are still unclear.