The Bunbury Cemetery Board has stunned local families by ordering "non-compliant" gravesite tributes and markers to be removed within 28 days.
Denise Thornborough says she will be damaged if she is unable to return the homemade tributes to her daughter's grave.
The board says it is bound by state laws and regulations, which local families are now pushing to change.
Families have been left heartbroken by a bureaucratic order to remove headstones, tributes and other keepsakes from loved ones' graves in a West Australian cemetery.
The Bunbury Cemetery Board sent out letters last month, alerting custodians to a grave site audit.
The letter cited a need to keep memorial gardens and the cemetery "safe, tidy and fair for everyone", giving those contacted a 28-day notice to remove tributes "not compliant" with regulations.
When Denise Thornborough's daughter, Linda McDonald, died 13 years ago, she and her family could not afford a headstone.
On top of funeral fees, a headstone can cost families up to $5,000, with even simpler plaques and grave markers advertised at hundreds of dollars.
The family began leaving handmade items, crosses and an angel statue, to mark Linda's final resting place and to pay tribute to her and her legacy.
Linda's sister, Jaimie Jones, said the cost should not dictate how a family remembers their loved ones.
Bunbury Cemetery Board chief executive Kristy Constantine said it was a state government authority, bound by laws and safety requirements.