Advices

If you wish to be cremated, you must express your wish to your family members, or in a will, or register with a Cremation Society. According to an official decree approved in 1990, your spouse or, lacking which, your next of kin – identified in accordance with the Mortuary Police Regulation – shall decide, after your death, whether to bury/inter – in the ground, inside a niche or in a vault – or cremate you. The new regulations, currently in the process of implementation, provide that cremation is no longer free of charge and that the ashes may be either scattered or placed inside an urn and stored in a location other than a cemetery. In Rome, all cremations take place at the crematorium located at the Flaminio Cemetery. For the time being, cremation is free for residents and for persons passing away in the commune of Rome. All cemeteries must have special areas for storing cremation urns (columbaria), which may otherwise be interred inside a niche or buried, without affecting the number of places provided in the concession. The cost of a niche for a cremation urn in a columbarium (granted under a 99-year lease) may vary, depending on the row, from € 208.07 to € 457.05. However, any extra places must be paid for if all the places included in the original concession have been occupied. This cost varies depending on the row.

If a family member or a loved one passes away, you must act as follows, as quickly as possible.
If the person dies at home, you must call the family doctor to determine the causes of death and prepare the death certificate. Either personally, or through Soc.Fun.Off.Roberto ZEGA a r.l. (telephone 06.78.40.300), you must then:
- call the official physician who, no earlier than 15 hours and no later than 30 hours from the time of death, will certify the death and write out another certificate;
- report the death to the competent civil registrar (with all the personal details) within 24 hours, taking with you both death certificates (the one issued by the family doctor and the one by the official physician).

If the person dies in a hospital, or other care facility, the hospital is responsible for reporting the death and issuing the related certificates.
In the event of a violent death, sudden death in a public space, or the death of a person living alone, it shall be necessary to report the event to the police, by calling 113, which may have to investigate, after which it will authorise the removal of the body.
For information relating to pension benefits and the related paperwork (annulment, survivor’s pension, etc.) click on the following link www.inps.it

The family members of a person who lived or passed away in the commune of Rome may apply for the lease of a niche. The lease period is 30 years and may be renewed after expiry. It is also possible to lease niches in columbaria for a period of 99 years. At present, burial in the ground is free of charge, but the forthcoming regulation will require the payment of a charge. The lease application must be made on a special form (on which a € 10.33 revenue stamp must be affixed) accompanied with the tax identification number of the lessee. The application may be submitted personally or through Fun.Off.Roberto ZEGA. The cost of the leased niche depends on its position. The payment must be made in cash or by means of a cashier’s cheque made out to "Tesoreria del Comune di Roma".

Assignment of catchment areas in the cemeteries in the commune of Rome
Following the opening of Rome’s new Laurentino Cemetery, located on the via Laurentina, the catchment areas of the urban and suburban cemeteries have been defined, as follows:

If no places are available in the district cemetery, burials will be sent to the Flaminio Cemetery, except in the case of District XIII, for which the Laurentino Cemetery if competent.

Under Italian law, full-body embalming is prohibited, although it is allowed to provide treatments for preserving a body for several months.
In Italy, the latter treatments generally concern foreign nationals, to allow the coffin to be re-opened when the deceased person returns to the place of origin.

Embalming treatments differ entirely from preservation treatments, which are allowed in the event of transportation of a deceased person between 1 April and 30 September or after 48 hours from death.
Funeraria Officia Roberto Zega may provide embalming treatments NATIONWIDE.

Following is the full text of the relevant article regarding embalming in the Official Journal:
Article 46 of the Official Journal no. 239 of 12 October 1990
1. Body embalming treatments shall be carried out under the control of the health coordinator of the local health authority, by qualified physicians and may begin only after a period of observation.
2. Before an embalming treatment can be carried out a special authorisation must be applied for from the mayor, who shall grant it subject to the presentation of the following documents:
a) a statement by the physician engaged to perform the treatment specifying the process, place and time of embalming.
b) separate certificates by the family doctor and the official physician stating that the death was not the result of a criminal offence.

At Funeraria Officia Roberto Zega, thanks to an extensive network of correspondents, we can provide for the repatriation of deceased persons from to any location, in Italy or abroad.
Call us for a quote, which we can provide in a short space of time.