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The word comes from French héritier légitime, meaning "rightful heir." The legitime is usually a statutory fraction of the decedent's gross estate and passes as joint property to the decedent's next-of-kin in equal undivided shares. The legitime cannot be infringed in order to give a spouse or other beneficiary a greater share of the estate.
In common law jurisdictions, 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, in the absence of a legal will, the estate is settled according to the laws of intestacy that apply in the jurisdiction where the deceased resided at the time of their death.
The net estate is inclusive of property that passed by the laws of intestacy, testamentary property, and testamentary substitutes, as enumerated in EPTL 5-1.1-A. New York's classification of testamentary substitutes that are included in the net estate make it challenging for a deceased spouse to disinherit their surviving spouse.
The administrator of an estate is a legal term referring to a person appointed by a court to administer the estate of a deceased person who left no will. [1] Where a person dies intestate, i.e., without a will, the court may appoint a person to settle their debts, pay any necessary taxes and funeral expenses, and distribute the remainder according to the procedure set down by law.
According to a draft of the proposal, the personal representative of the deceased, such as the executor of a will, would get access to - but not control of - a person's digital files so long as ...
An elective share is a term used in American law relating to inheritance, which describes a proportion of an estate which the surviving spouse of the deceased may claim in place of what they were left in the decedent's will. It may also be called a widow's share, statutory share, election against the will, or forced share.
In common law and statutory law, a life estate (or life tenancy) is the ownership of immovable property for the duration of a person's life. In legal terms, it is an estate in real property that ends at death, when the property rights may revert to the original owner or to another person. The owner of a life estate is called a "life tenant".
Inheritance taxes are paid not by the estate of the deceased, but by the inheritors of the estate. For example, the Kentucky inheritance tax "is a tax on the right to receive property from a decedent's estate; both tax and exemptions are based on the relationship of the beneficiary to the decedent." [52]