A will or testament is a legal document that expresses a person's (testator) wishes as to how their property (estate) is to be distributed after their death and as to which person (executor) is to manage the property until its final distribution. For the distribution (devolution) of property not determined by a will, see inheritance and intestacy.
In Civil law and Roman law, the legitime, also known as a forced share or legal right share, of a decedent's estate is that portion of the estate from which he cannot disinherit his children, or his parents, without sufficient legal cause. The word comes from French héritier légitime, meaning "rightful heir."
Per stirpes is a legal term from Latin. An estate of a decedent is distributed per stirpes if each branch of the family is to receive an equal share of an estate. When the heir in the first generation of a branch predeceased the decedent, the share that would have been given to the heir would be distributed among the heir's issue in equal shares. It may also be known as strict per stirpes or the old English approach, and differs from distribution per capita, as members of the same generation may inherit different amounts.
In law, vesting is the point in time when the rights and interests arising from legal ownership of a property is acquired by some person. Vesting creates an immediately secured right of present or future deployment. One has a vested right to an asset that cannot be taken away by any third party, even though one may not yet possess the asset. When the right, interest, or title to the present or future possession of a legal estate can be transferred to any other party, it is termed a vested interest.
Wills have a lengthy history.
Probate is the judicial process whereby a will is "proved" in a court of law and accepted as a valid public document that is the true last testament of the deceased, or whereby the estate is settled according to the laws of intestacy in the state of residence of the deceased at time of death in the absence of a legal will.
Pari passu is a Latin phrase that literally means "with an equal step" or "on equal footing". It is sometimes translated as "ranking equally", "hand-in-hand", "with equal force", or "moving together", and by extension, "fairly", "without partiality".
In jurisprudence, undue influence is an equitable doctrine that involves one person taking advantage of a position of power over another person. This inequity in power between the parties can vitiate one party's consent as they are unable to freely exercise their independent will.
The fertile octogenarian and the unborn widow are two legal fictions from the law of real property that can be used either to invoke the rule against perpetuities to make an interest in property void or, alternatively and much more frequently, to demonstrate the seemingly bizarre results that can occur as a result of the rule. The rule itself, simply stated, makes a future interest in property void if it can be logically proven that there is some possibility of the interest not vesting or failing within 21 years after the end of a life in being at the time the interest is created.
In the law of property, a pretermitted heir is a person who would likely stand to inherit under a will, except that the testator did not include the person in the testator's will. Omission may occur because the testator did not know of the omitted person at the time the will was written.
A residuary estate, in the law of wills, is any portion of the testator's estate that is not specifically devised to someone in the will, or any property that is part of such a specific devise that fails. It is also known as a residual estate or simply residue.
A power of appointment is a term most frequently used in the law of wills to describe the ability of the testator to select a person who will be given the authority to dispose of certain property under the will. Although any person can exercise this power at any time during their life, its use is rare outside of a will. The power is divided into two broad categories: general powers of appointment and special powers of appointment. The holder of a power of appointment differs from the trustee of a trust in that the former has no obligation to manage the property for the generation of income, but need only distribute it.
The immediate family is a defined group of relations, used in rules or laws to determine which members of a person's family are affected by those rules. It normally includes a person's parents, siblings, spouses, children, or an individual related by blood whose close association is an equivalent of a family relationship. It can contain others connected by birth, adoption, marriage, civil partnership, or cohabitation, such as grandparents, great-grandparents, grandchildren, great-grandchildren, aunts, uncles, siblings-in-law, half-siblings, cousins, adopted children and step-parents/step-children, and cohabiting partners. The term close relatives is used similarly.
Price v. Watkins, 1 U.S. 8 (1763) is a decision of a Pennsylvania Provincial Court, issued when Pennsylvania was still an English colony. It is among the first decisions that appear in the first volume of United States Reports.
Fussell v. Gregg, 113 U.S. 550 (1885), was an appeal from the United States District Court for the Northern District of Ohio regarding a bill in equity filed November 20, 1879, to establish the title of the plaintiff to, and recover the possession of, a certain tract of land in the County of Logan, in the State of Ohio, and for an account of rents and profits. The dispute was one of many issues with land titles in the former Virginia Military District section of Ohio.
Lyeth v. Hoey, 305 U.S. 188 (1938), is a United States Supreme Court case in which the Court held that property received by an heir under a settlement agreement resolving a dispute over the decedent's will is property acquired by "inheritance," which exempts the value of such property from the income tax.
Nestle v National Westminster Bank plc [1992] EWCA Civ 12 is an English trusts law case concerning the duty of care when a trustee is making an investment.
The South African law of succession prescribes the rules which determine the devolution of a person's estate after his death, and all matters incidental thereto. It identifies the beneficiaries who are entitled to succeed to the deceased's estate, and the extent of the benefits they are to receive, and determines the different rights and duties that persons may have in a deceased's estate. It forms part of private law.
Re Barlow’s Will Trusts [1979] 1 WLR 278 is an English trusts law case, concerning certainty of the words "family" and "friends" in a will.
Minshull v Minshull (1737) 26 ER 260 is an English trusts law case, concerning the principle of certainty for a will, known then as a "devise".
