Florida Statute 406.51
“Final disposition of unclaimed deceased veterans; contract requirements”
What it means
This is a one-sentence statute with a specific job. When a local governmental entity contracts out the final disposition of unclaimed remains, Florida Statute 406.51 requires the contract to do two things: provide for compliance with §406.50(2) — the reasonable-effort duty to identify the deceased, contact relatives, and determine national-cemetery eligibility — and require that the procedures in 38 C.F.R. 38.620, the federal rule on disposition of unclaimed deceased veterans, are followed.
The point is that a county's disposition contractor cannot skip the veteran check the county itself would owe.
- Applies to any contract by a local governmental entity for the final disposition of unclaimed remains.
- The contract must provide for compliance with §406.50(2) — identification, relative contact, and the national-cemetery eligibility check.
- It must also require that 38 C.F.R. 38.620, the federal procedure for unclaimed deceased veterans, is followed.
How it plays out
This section exists because unclaimed-remains work is usually outsourced — a county contracts with funeral homes or removal services, and the veteran check could vanish into the handoff. We treat it as the enforcement hook: when a family later learns a veteran relative was buried at county expense instead of in a national cemetery, the first questions are whether the county's contract carried the §406.51 requirements and whether the contractor followed 38 C.F.R. 38.620. An eligible veteran's burial benefit should not depend on which vendor won the bid.
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