Pet owners hit with 583.7% cemetery fee hike
WILMINGTON, NC (StarNewsOnline) — While the new owner of the Walden Pond Pet Cemetery on Market Street and pet owners remain in a legal gridlock, pet owners just received notice of a 583.7 percent increase in the cemetery maintenance fees they pay.
In the same letter, pet owners received new rules and regulations that state if monthly maintenance fees are not paid, owners are barred from visiting the cemetery grounds and their rights to the grounds are “null and void.”
Twenty pet owners sued the cemetery’s new owner Ricky Coates in May when they learned Coates had plans to develop the land where 214 family pets are buried, potentially turning it into a parking lot. When Coates purchased the property a few months before, he wrote to pet owners, telling them they had 90 days to remove their animals’ remains.
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