Glossary

Administrator/Administratrix
In the most usual sense of the word, is a person to whom letters of administration, that is, an authority to administer the estate of a deceased person, have been granted by the proper court. Administrator connotes male; administratrix connotes female.

Ancillary Administration
Administration in state where decedent has property and which is other than where decedent was domiciled.

Codicil
A supplement or an addition to a will; it may explain, modify, add to , subtract from, qualify, alter, restrain or revoke provisions in will.

Descent
Hereditary succession.  Succession to the ownership of an estate by inheritance, or by any act of law, as distinguished from purchase.

Domicile
That place where a man has his true, fixed, and permanent home and principal establishment, and to which whenever he is absent he has the intention of returning.

Escheat
Escheat is an obstruction of the course of descent, and consequent determination of the tenure, by some unforeseen contingency, in which case the land naturally results back, by a kind of reversion, to the original grantor, or lord of the fee.  It signifies a reversion of property to the state in consequence of a want of any individual competent to inherit.

Executor/Executrix
Same as administrator.  Executor connotes male; executrix connotes female.

Fiduciary
A person holding the character of a trustee, or a character analogous to that of a trustee, in respect to the trust and confidence involved in it and the scrupulous good faith and candor which it requires.

Fiduciary Capacity
One is said to act in a fiduciary capacity or to receive money or contract a debt in a fiduciary capacity, when the business which he transacts, or the money or property which he handles, is not his own or for his own benefit, but for the benefit of another person, as to whom he stands in a relation implying and necessitating great confidence and trust on the one part and a high degree of good faith on the other part.

Gifts Mortis Causa (Causa Mortis)
A gift of personalty made in expectation of death. 

Heir
The person appointed by law to succeed to the estate in case of intestacy.  One who inherits property, whether real or personal.

Inter Vivos
Between the living; from one living person to another.  Gifts of property may be inter vivos or causa mortis.

Intestate
Without making a will. A person is said to die intestate when he dies without making a will, or dies without leaving anything to testify what his wishes were with respect to the disposal of his property after his death.

Intestacy
The state or condition of dying without having made a valid will, or without having disposed by will of a part of his property.

Issue
Descendants.  All persons who have descended from a common ancestor.

Letters of Administration
Same as letters testamentary.

Letters Testamentary
The formal instrument of authority and appointment given to an executor by the proper court, empowering him to enter upon the discharge of his office as executor.

Per Capita
Lat. By the heads or polls; according to the number of individuals; share and share alike.

Per Stirpes
Lat. By roots or stocks; by representation.  This term, derived from the civil law, is much used in the law of descents and distribution, and denotes that method of dividing an intestate estate where a class or group of distributees take the share which their deceased would have been entitled to , taking thus by their right of representing such ancestor, and not as so many individuals.

Pretermitted Heirs
A child or other descendant omitted by a testator.  Where a testator unintentionally fails to mention in his will, or make provision for a child, either living at the date of the execution of the will or born thereafter, a statute may provide that such child, or the issue of a deceased child, shall share in the estate as though the testator had died intestate.

Probate
Originally, relating to proof; afterwards, relating to the proof of wills.  The act or process of proving a will.  In American law, now a general name or term used to include all matters of which probate courts have jurisdiction.

Residuary Estate
That which remains after debts and expenses of administration have been satisfied.  It consists of all that has not been legally disposed of by will, other than by residuary clause.

Succession
The devolution of title to property under the law of descent and distribution.

Usufruct
The right of enjoying a thing, the property of which is invested in another, and to draw from the same all the profit, utility, and advantage which it may produce, provided it be without altering the substance of the thing.