We want to bury Dad on the family farm — didn't realise how much red tape that involves

I saw this a handful of times over 31 years in regional Victoria, so I can at least tell you what's realistic. First, good instinct calling the council before anything else, that's exactly right. What you were told lines up with how it generally works everywhere in Australia: you need both council land-use approval and state health department sign-off, and they're looking at things like distance from the house, dams or waterways, and boundaries. There's a good overview of the whole process at can you be buried on private land in Australia if you want the full shape of it before you're back on the phone to them.

The honest answer on timing: in my experience it's weeks to a few months, not days, even when everyone's cooperating and the paperwork is straightforward. That's the hard part when someone's time is genuinely limited: the approval doesn't move at the speed the situation does. What I'd suggest, gently: start the council and health department applications now, in parallel, rather than waiting to see how things go with your dad first. If it doesn't come through in time, or the timing simply doesn't allow it, a family grave at a nearby cemetery is still a completely meaningful way to bury him close to home, and you're not failing him by having a backup. If it does come through, you've lost nothing by starting early.

One thing worth doing in parallel: talk to a solicitor about how the grave gets recorded against the property title. It's not just a formality: it affects the farm for good, and it's worth understanding that properly while you still have time to think it through as a family, not scrambling to sign something at the end.

Adding the records side, since that's my patch. Whatever happens with the land approval, ask the council specifically how the grave's location gets registered once it's done. You want it written down properly (survey point, or at minimum accurate measurements from fixed landmarks), not just "in the top paddock near the old fence line." I've helped families search for graves on private land that were only ever remembered informally, and once the generation who buried someone has passed, "near the fence line" becomes genuinely difficult for grandchildren to pin down decades later. Whoever manages your family's paperwork should keep a copy of everything: the approval, any survey, and photos, somewhere the whole family knows about, the same advice I'd give for any family grave anywhere.

I'll offer the other side gently, not to talk you out of it, just so you've weighed it. In twenty years managing cemeteries I've had a few families ask about this exact thing, and about half who seriously looked into it ended up choosing a cemetery instead, usually once they thought hard about who maintains the grave in fifty years if the farm ever leaves the family, and whether future generations would need to ask permission from whoever owns it by then to visit. Neither choice is wrong. But it's worth the family having that conversation honestly now, rather than everyone assuming the farm stays in the family forever by default. If you do go ahead, for what it's worth, I think it's a lovely thing to be able to give someone who's genuinely asked for it, just go in with eyes open about what you're committing the land to.