Other Glossary Terms

Abatement

Situation in which gifts are reduced or fail because there is not sufficient property in the testator's net estate to make all the gifts designated in the testator's will

Absolute

Gift or transfer without conditions

Accounting

Report of all items of property, receipts, and disbursements prepared by the person responsible for managing those properties , receipts, and disbursements.

Acknowledged

Signed under oath before two witnesses and a notary public or other appropriate governmental official.

Ad Litem

Latin for “for the suit.”

Ademption

Situation for which a gift fails because the property is not in the testator's estate, or has been substantially changed, at the time of the testator's death.

Administrator in chief

Domiciliary administration, when an ancillary administration is also taking place.

Admitted to probate

Examined, proved and validated as a final genuine expressions of the decedent's testamentary intent.

Advancement

Transfer of property from a person to an expectant heir, with the intent that the property be deducted from the expectant heir's inheritance, if any.

Affinity

Relationship to one's spouse and persons related to one's spouse

Afterborn child

Child born after a will was made

Age of majority

Legal age of adulthood. In this state it is 19.

Agent

Person authorized by a principal to perform specified acts on the principal's behalf.

Annual exclusion

Exclusion under I.RC. § 2503(b) which provides that the total amount of gifts made during a calendar year does not include the first $11,000 of gifts not of a future interest made by a donor to each and every donee during that calendar year.

Appointment

Formal selection.

Appreciated property

Property that has increased in value since it was acquired.

Approved list

Statutes that enumerate the kinds of investments that a fiduciary may make with a fiduciary estate.

Ascendants

One's parents and their parents before them.

Ascertainable standard

Standard capable of being determined by third party.

Attest

Certify

Attestation clause

Customary will provision, after the testator's signature indicating that the instrument has been signed by the witness with the intent to attest (i.e., certify) that the instrument was signed by the testator with the intent and capacity to make it the testator's will, and that the required formalities were observed.

Attorney in fact

Person who is authorized by a principal to perform specified acts on the principals' behalf.

Augmented estate

All the testator's property owned at death, not just the property left in the testator's will.

Avoid probate

To avoid administration of a decedent's estate in probate court.

Beneficial interest

Equitable title (i.e., possession and use of a property)m when distinct from legal title.

Bequeath

Traditionally, the act of giving personal property other than money in a will; now, the act of giving personal property or any property in a will.

Bequest

Traditionally, a gift of personal property other than money in a will; now, a gift of personal property or any property in a will.

Bifurcation

Process of dividing and separating ownership of property into two parts (e.g., legal title and equitable title).

Blood relatives

Member of a lineage, all of whom can trace their natural origin back to a common ancestor.

Bond

Sum of money (or the proceeds of an insurance policy) that may be paid to the court and used to reimburse a protected person should that person's fiduciary fail to perform his or her duties faithfully.

Conflict of interest

Incompatible set of personal or professional interests.

Consanguinity

Relationship between blood relatives; commonality of persons who can trace their natural origins back to a common ancestor.

Conservator

In most states, a person with special expertise appointed to mange specific property, such as a business; in some states, a person appointed to protect and care for an incompetent adult and manage his or her property, or a person with special expertise appointed to manage specific property.

Cotenants

Co-owners of an estate

Cotrustee

One of two or more trustees who serve at the same time.

Devise

Traditionally, a gift of real property in a will; now any gift of property in a will.

Disclaimer

Refusal by an heir to take all or part of an inheritance, especially where the inheritance is considered “passed on” by the refusing heir.

Discretion clause

Express provision in a trust directing the trustee to transfer only that amount of income or principal to the beneficiary as the trustee, in the trustee's sole discretion, decides.

Discretionary trust

Trust containing a discretion clause

Disinherited

Situation in which a person expects or is expected to inherit but does not.

Distributee

Person to whom personal property is transferred after the transferor's death.

Donee

Person receiving a gift.

Donor

Person making a gift.

Duress

Unlawful pressure to act.

Estate for years

Estate in which the grantee's ownership continues until a stated period of years has elapsed after which ownership reverts to the grantor.

Estate planning

Planning for the transfer of property in contemplation of, or as the result of, death.

Estate tax

Tax payable by a decedent's estate on the privilege of transferring property to another at or after the decedent's death.

Fair market value

Price at which a property would change hands between a willing buyer and a willing seller, neither being under any compulsion to buy or sell, and both having reasonable knowledge of the relevant facts.

Fee Simple

Ownership of land without condition; ownership of both present and future interests in property.

Fee simple conditional

Estate in which the grantee's ownership continues unless a “so long as” condition occurs; if so, ownership automatically reverts to the grantor.

Final accounting

Accounting required to be filed in the probate court when administration of a decedent's estate is completed.

Fraud in the execution

Deception regarding the character of an instrument.

Fraud in the inducement

Deception regarding the circumstances in which an instrument is made.

Fraudulent conveyance

Transfer of property intended to deceive another.

Future interest

Right to the future possession of property.

General power of appointment

Power of appointment that permits the appointed person to transfer property to anyone, including himself or herself.

General power of attorney

Power of attorney that grants the agent broad powers to act on the principal's behalf.

Generation-skipping tax (GST)

Tax on the privilege of transferring property bypassing a generation in a manner that generally avoids estate and gift taxes.

Gift

Intentional transfer of property from the transferor's generosity; generally, a direction in a will to transfer property to a beneficiary.

Gift tax

Tax payable by a donor (or the donor's estate) on the privilege of transferring property to another during the donor's life, to the extent that each transfer is made for less than adequate and full consideration in money or money's worth.

Gross estate

Generally, all property, wherever located, in which a decedent owned a beneficial interest at the time of death.

Guardian ad litem

Person appointed solely to initiate or defend a lawsuit on behalf of another who is unable to do so.

Guardian of the person

Person appointed solely to protect and care for a ward and not the ward's property.

Guardian of the property

Person or legal entity appointed solely to manage a ward's property and not the ward's person.

In terrorem

Latin for “in fright or terror; by way of threat”; will provisions that a gift is made on condition that the beneficiary not contest the validity of the will

Income

Property earned by the trustee's management of a corpus or principal.

Instrument

Formal legal writing

Intangible property

Property rights in abstract things.

Inventory

Itemized list of property.

Irrevocable

Not changeable by recall.

Joint tenancy

Form of co-ownership in which the unities of possession, time, title, and interest are met; characterized by loss of ownership upon death and sole ownership by the last surviving cotenant.

Kin/kinship

Term sometimes used to refer to one's blood relatives may also refer to a larger or smaller group.

Lapse

Situation in which a beneficiary named in a will is alive at the time the will is made but dies before the testator does.

Legal list

Statues that enumerate the kinds of investment a fiduciary may make with a fiduciary estate.

Legal representative

Generally, a person's executor, administrator, guardian, or attorney; specifically, an executor, administrator, or family member of a decedent who is entitle to file a wrongful death action

Legal title

Deed and right to transfer property.

Life estate

Estate in which a grantee's ownership continues until the grantee dies, at which time the grantee's ownership either revers to the grantor or transfers to a third person named by the grantor in the original grant.

Life insurance trust

Trust with life insurance as its trust property; irrevocable trust (to avoid inclusion under I.R.C. § 2038) of a life insurance policy on the settlor's life in which the settlor is not the trustee and does not retain any “incidents of ownership” (to avoid inclusion under I.R.C. § 2042).

Limited power of attorney

Power of attorney that grants the agent only a few specified powers to perform on the principal's behalf.

Line of descent

All the people who have descended one from the other from a common ancestor, arranged in order of birth.

Lineage

All who can trace their natural origins back to a common ancestor.

Lineal relatives

One's parents and their parents before them, and one's child or children and their children after them; person related in a direct line of descent.

Living will

Generally, a legal declaration that one does not want one's life artificially prolonged if one is unable to give directions regarding the use of life-sustaining treatment while in a terminal condition or permanently unconscious state.

Lucid interval

Period during which a mentally ill person is thinking normally and may have testamentary capacity.

Marital deduction

Under I.R.C. § 2056, provisions permitting a decedent's estate to deduct all qualifying property that passes from the decedent to the surviving spouse if the surviving spouse is a citizen of the United States.

Medicaid

The U.S. government's medical welfare benefit program.

Medicare

The Social Security medical benefit program

Minor

Child under the age of majority.

Natural object of one's bounty

Closest members of one's family.

Next of kin

Phrase sometimes used to refer to the nearest blood relative surviving a decedent; may also refer to the nearest relative of a larger of smaller group.

Nonprobate property

Property in which ownership terminates at one's death

Of sound mind and memory

Having mind and memory in “whole” or “good” condition, as required to have testamentary capacity.

Per capita

Latin for “by the heads” (meaning “equally”); property is divided in equal shares among those who are in an equal degree of consanguinity to the decedent.

Per stirpes

Latin for “by the roots or stocks” (meaning “by right of representation”). Property is divided in equal shares among those who are in an equal degree of consanguinity to a decedent, with descendants of a decease ancestor taking the ancestor's share by representation, as if the ancestor had survived the decedent.

Perpetuities savings clause

Clause stating that all gifts shall be modified to the extent necessary to avoid violation of the Rule against Perpetuities.

Personal property

Property other than land and fixtures; property whose value generally depends on personal demand.

Power of appointment

Designation of a trusted person as having the power to transfer some or all of a tesator's property as the trusted person deems appropriate.

Power of attorney

Instrument by which one expressly authorizes another to perform specified acts (not constituting the practice of law) on one's behalf.

Present interest

Right to the present or current possession of property.

Principal

Person who makes a power of attorney; property transferred by a settlor into a trust, as opposed to the property earned by the trustee's management of that property (known as income).

Probate

Legal proceeding permitting a representative of a decedent to prove the existence of a decedent's will and transfer the decedents property according to that will.

Probate code

Group of statutes in a given state that routinely apply to the administration of estates.

Probate property

Property a decedent owned at death and property acquired by the decedent's estate.

Property

Anything over which the law permits a person or legal entity to have a right of dominion and control.

Prudent investor rule

Rule that a fiduciary may invest the fiduciary estate only in investment that have a reasonable probability of providing a good return of income while preserving the principal.

Prudent person rule

Rule that a fiduciary may invest the fiduciary estate only in investments that have a reasonable probability of providing a good return of income while preserving the principal. (Same as prudent investor rule.)

Publication clause

Clause in a will indicating that the will is to be made public after the testator's death.

Qualified terminable interest property (Q-TIP)

Property passing from the decedent in which the surviving spouse has a qualifying income interest for life.

Reading of the will

Custom, in the late 1800's and early 1900's of having the executor's attorney call the decedent's beneficiaries and potential heirs together and read the decedent's will to them. In theory, reading the will reduced questions about the attorney's or executor's handling of the decedent's estate and prepared beneficiaries and potential heirs for what they would or would not receive.

Real estate

Collection of property rights in land and fixtures.

Real property

Land and fixtures; property considered to have inherent value.

Residence

Place where someone lives relatively permanently.

Residuary gift

Gift made by a residuary clause.

Residue

Traditionally, person property remaining after all specific bequests and legacies have been made; now, any property remaining after all specific devises, bequests, and legacies have been made.

Revocable

Changeable by recall or cancellation.

Revocation

Action by which something is revoked

Revoked

Recalled or canceled.

Right of survivorship

Automatic right to share in a cotenant's share upon the cotenant's death, with the cotenant who survives all other cotenants becoming the sole owner of the property.

Rule Against Perpetuities

Generally, the time limit withing which private interests in property must be created or transferred in the future. The common law rule is that “No interest is good unless it must vest, if at all, not later than twenty-one years after some life in being at the date of the creation of the interest.”

Specific bequest

Will provision giving a specific item or items, or piece or pieces, or personal property to a specific beneficiary or beneficiaries.

Specific devise

Will provision giving a specific item or items, or piece or pieces, or real property to a specific beneficiary or beneficiaries.

Specific legacy

Will provision giving a specific item or items, or piece or pieces of personal property, especially money, to a specific beneficiary or beneficiaries.

Tangible property

Property rights in physical things.

Tenancy by the entirety

Form of co-ownership in which the unities of person, possession, time, title, and interest are met. (Tenancy by the entirety is characterized by co-ownership by a husband and wife under common law.)

Tenancy in common

Form of co-ownership in which the only required unity is that of possession. (Tenancy in common is characterized by the easy transfer of a cotenant's share, during life, or by will, after death, separate and apart from any other cotenant.)

Terminable interest

Interest that will end upon the occurrence of a definite event.

Testacy

Status of a person who dies, or is expected to die, leaving a will.

Testament

Latin for will.

Testamentary trust

Express trust created in a will.

Trust property

Property held in trust.

Undue influence

Improper influence resulting in an unnatural act.

Unified credit

Under I.R.C. § 2010, the general credit taxpayers can take against gross estate taxes and gift taxes. Now called applicable amount.

Unified credit trust

Trust with a formula clause or otherwise designed to take the maximum available unified credit to the federal estate tax. Credit Shelter Trust

Uniform Probate Code (U.P.C.)

Act under which an adult can give small amounts of property to a minor child outside a guardianship and name an adult as the custodian (caretaker) of the property for the minor child without creating a formal trust relationship.

Valid

Legal or legally effective

Valid will

Will made in accordance with all requirements and formalities.