| Dictionary of Estate Planning Terms |
Here Are Some Important Estate Planning Terms
A/B Trust - A lawyer's phrase for a "marital life estate trust."
Affidavit - A written statement made under oath.
Annuity - Payment of a fixed sum of money to a specified person at regular intervals.
Beneficiary - A person or organization who is legally entitled to receive gifts made under a legal document such as a will or trust.
Bequest - An old legal term for a will provision leaving personal property to a specified person or organization.
Bypass trust - Any trust that creates a life estate for a life beneficiary, with the trust principal going to the final beneficiary when the life beneficiary dies.
Charitable trust - Any trust desinged to make a substantial gift to a charity, and also achieve income and estate tax savings for the grantor.
Codicil - A separate legal document which, after it has been signed and properly witnessed, changes an existing will.
Conservator - Someone appointed by a court to manage the affairs of a mentally incompetent person.
Death taxes - Taxes levied on the property of a person who dies.
Deed - The legal document by which one person transfers title to real estate to another person or persons.
Descendant - A person who is an offspring, however remote, of a certain person or family.
Estate - Generally, all the property you own when you die.
Estate taxes - Taxes imposed on your property as it passes from the dead to the living.
Executor - The person named in your will to manage your estate, deal with the probate court, collect your assets and distribute them as you have specified.
Generation-skipping turst - An estate tax-saving trust, where the principal is left in trust for one's grandchildren, with one's children receiving only the trust income.
Grantor - The person who establishes a trust.
Holographic will - A will that is completely handwritten by the person making it.
Intestate - To die without a will or other valid estate transfer device.
Life estate - The right to use trust property, and receive income for it, during one's lifetime.
Life insurance trust - An irrevocable trust designed to own life insurance and reduce the size of the original owner's taxable estate.
Living trust - A trust set up while a person is alive and which remain under the control of that person until death.
Living will - A document where you provide that you do not want to have your life artificially prolonged by technical means, but choose a natural death.
Pour-over will - A will that "pours over" property into a trust.
Probate - The court proceeding in which the authenticity of your will is established, your executor or administrator is appointed, your debts and taxes are paid, your heirs are identified, and your property is distributed according to your will.
Successor trustee - The person who takes over as trustee of a trust when the original trustee dies or becomes incapacitated.
Testator - A person making a will.
Trust - The legal arrangement uhder which one person or institution (trustee) control property given by another person (trustor) for the benefit of a third person (beneficiary).
Will - A legal document in which a person states various binding intentions about what he or she wants done with his or her property after death.
Provided By - Richard H. Hallstrom, Esq.
For
Plan-My-Estate.com
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