Will Components, Construction and Lapse: every key term you need (+ practice quiz)
25 flashcard terms for Wills and Trusts Topic 3, written to match the course framework. Study them here, then drill them as interactive flashcards, or test yourself with the 15-question quiz — free, no account needed.
The doctrine that all pages present at execution and intended to form part of the will are probated together, usually shown by physical connection, orderly sequence, and continuity of language.
Republication by codicil
The rule treating a validly executed codicil as re-executing the underlying will as of the codicil's date, which can cure some timing problems and refresh the will's operative language.
Incorporation by reference
The doctrine admitting an outside writing that was in existence when the will was executed, is sufficiently described to be identified, and is referred to with the intent to incorporate it.
Acts of independent significance
The principle permitting a will's disposition to be determined by future acts or events that have their own lifetime purpose, such as leaving the car owned at death or the contents of a safe.
Tangible personal property list
A separate signed memorandum the Uniform Probate Code allows a testator to prepare or revise after execution to dispose of items of tangible personal property other than money.
Specific devise
A gift of a particular identified asset, such as a named parcel or a described painting, which is satisfied only out of that asset and is the most vulnerable to ademption.
General devise
A gift payable out of the general assets of the estate, typically a sum of money, which the executor satisfies by selling other property if no earmarked fund exists.
Demonstrative devise
A hybrid gift of a stated amount payable primarily from a designated source, treated as specific to the extent the source exists and as general as to any shortfall.
Residuary devise
The clause disposing of everything not otherwise given away, which absorbs failed gifts, after-acquired assets, and property the testator overlooked when the will was drafted.
Ademption by extinction
The failure of a specific devise because the described asset is no longer in the estate at death, applied under the identity theory without regard to the testator's likely intent.
Intent theory of ademption
The modern Uniform Probate Code approach that gives the devisee replacement property, condemnation awards, insurance proceeds, or a pecuniary equivalent when extinction would defeat the testator's probable intent.
Ademption by satisfaction
The reduction or elimination of a devise because the testator made a lifetime transfer intended as prepayment, which the Code recognizes only on written evidence of that intent.
Abatement
The order in which gifts are reduced when the estate cannot pay debts, expenses, and all devises, beginning with intestate property and residuary gifts before general and then specific devises.
Exoneration of liens
The common law presumption that a devisee of encumbered land takes free of the mortgage, reversed by the Uniform Probate Code so the devisee takes subject to the debt absent a contrary direction.
Accessions and stock splits
The rule that a devisee of securities receives additional shares produced by splits and share dividends, reflecting the reality that such changes alter form rather than value.
Lapse
The failure of a devise because the beneficiary died before the testator, since a will speaks at death and a deceased individual cannot take an outright gift.
Antilapse statute
A statute substituting the deceased beneficiary's descendants when the beneficiary was within a specified degree of relationship to the testator, most often a grandparent's descendant under the Code.
Words of survivorship
Language such as to my son if he survives me, which many states treat as defeating the antilapse statute although the Uniform Probate Code says it alone is not a sufficient contrary intent.
Class gift
A gift to a group described collectively rather than by name, in which the surviving members ordinarily divide the whole even if one member predeceases the testator.
Rule of convenience
The construction rule closing a class when a distribution is due, so that later-born members are excluded and the shares of existing members can be determined and paid.
Void devise
A gift to someone already dead when the will was signed, or to an entity that never existed, which fails at the outset although antilapse statutes may still supply substitute takers.
Plain meaning rule
The traditional refusal to admit extrinsic evidence to contradict unambiguous will language, criticized because a clear text may still express a mistaken understanding of the facts.
Latent ambiguity
A defect that appears only when the will is applied to the facts, such as two people fitting one description, and which courts have long allowed extrinsic evidence to resolve.
Patent ambiguity
A defect apparent on the face of the instrument, such as inconsistent numbers, which older courts refused to cure by evidence though modern courts admit clarifying proof.
Reformation for mistake
The Uniform Probate Code power to correct a will's terms to conform to intent when clear and convincing evidence shows both the actual intent and the nature of the drafting or factual mistake.