Updated August 4, 2026. Quick answer: estate vocabulary is not hard, but a lot of it is written circularly — definitions that use three other undefined terms. These are written to be usable. 39 terms, each with its own link anchor so a single definition can be cited directly, and each one whose real answer is state-specific says so rather than pretending a national definition settles it.
The terms
Abatement. The order in which gifts are reduced when the estate cannot pay everything. Residuary gifts are cut first, specific bequests last — so the person left “whatever remains” often receives nothing while a named item still passes.
Ademption. What happens when a specific gift no longer exists at death — the house was sold, the car traded. In most states the gift simply fails and the beneficiary receives nothing in its place.
Administrator. The person appointed to settle an estate when there is no will, or no executor able to serve. The job is the executor’s job; only the route to the appointment differs. Full page.
Advance directive. A document stating your health-care wishes and, usually, naming who decides if you cannot. Witness and notary requirements are set by state law. Full page.
Ancillary probate. A second probate opened in a state where the decedent owned real property but did not live. It is a separate proceeding with its own cost. Full page.
Basis step-up. The resetting of an inherited asset’s cost basis to its value at the date of death, which erases the unrealised gain accumulated during the owner’s life. It is the single largest tax benefit in estate planning and it applies to inherited property, not to gifts made during life. Full page.
Beneficiary designation. The form attached to a retirement account or insurance policy naming who receives it. It overrides the will. An outdated form beats the most carefully drafted estate plan. Full page.
Certification of trust. A short document proving a trust exists and who may act for it, without disclosing its terms. Banks ask for it; handing over the full trust instrument instead is oversharing. Full page.
Codicil. An amendment to a will. It must be executed with the same formality as the will itself, which is why amending is often no cheaper than replacing.
Community property. A marital property system in which most property acquired during marriage is owned half by each spouse from the moment it is acquired. It changes what intestacy is even dividing. Full page.
Decedent. The person who died. The term used throughout probate documents.
Escheat. Property passing to the state when no heir can be found. Genuinely rare, because the statutory ladder of heirs is long. Full page.
Executor. The person named in a will to settle the estate. Personally liable for getting the order of payments right, which is the part most executors do not know. Full page.
Fiduciary duty. The legal obligation to act in another person’s interest rather than your own. Executors, trustees, and agents under a power of attorney all owe it.
Funding a trust. Actually retitling assets into the trust’s name. An unfunded trust does nothing. This is the most common expensive failure in the whole subject. Full page.
Holographic will. A will written entirely in the testator’s own handwriting. Recognised in some states and void in others — a genuinely state-by-state answer. Full page.
Intestate. Dying without a valid will, so the state’s statute distributes the probate estate. The surviving spouse usually does not take everything. Full page.
Letters testamentary. The court document proving an executor’s authority. Banks and title companies ask for it before they will act. Full page.
Per stirpes / by representation. How a deceased beneficiary’s share passes to their own children. The formulations differ by state and produce different results for the same family — any single national rule you read is describing one state without saying which. Full page.
Pour-over will. A will that sends anything left outside the trust into it at death. A safety net, not a substitute for funding the trust. Full page.
Power of attorney. Authority for someone to act on your financial affairs while you are alive. It ends at death. Execution rules and whether a third party can be compelled to accept it are state law. Full page.
Probate. The court process that transfers a decedent’s probate property. Cost is set by the state’s fee model, and many estates never need it. Full page.
Probate estate. Only the property that passes under the will or by intestacy. Retirement accounts, POD/TOD assets, joint property and funded-trust assets are outside it — often most of the money. Full page.
Residuary estate. Everything left after specific gifts, debts and expenses. The residuary beneficiary bears the shortfall when an estate underperforms.
Self-proving affidavit. A notarised statement by the witnesses that lets a will be admitted without tracking them down years later. Mandatory in some states, merely sensible in others. Full page.
Small-estate affidavit. A sworn form that transfers property below a threshold without opening probate. The threshold and whether it reaches real property vary sharply by state. Full page.
Spendthrift clause. A trust provision blocking a beneficiary from assigning their interest and blocking most creditors from reaching it before distribution.
Transfer-on-death deed. A recorded deed passing real property at death without probate, revocable until then. Authorised only in the states that have adopted it. Full page.
Trustee. The person or institution holding trust property for the beneficiaries, owing them a fiduciary duty and, usually, an accounting. Full page.
Revocable living trust. A trust you can change or revoke during life. It avoids probate for what is inside it; it does not by itself reduce estate tax or protect assets from your own creditors. Full page.
Irrevocable trust. A trust that generally cannot be amended once made — though several states now allow modification by consent or decanting. Full page.
The five that cause the most trouble
If you read nothing else here: funding a trust (an unfunded trust does nothing), beneficiary designation (it beats the will), probate estate (usually much smaller than people assume), by representation (defined by statute and different between states), and elective share (a will cannot fully disinherit a spouse in most states). Every one of those is a place where a confident wrong assumption costs real money.
How to use this, and how to cite it
Every term above has a stable anchor — link to a single definition by adding #t- and the term’s slug to this page’s address. Definitions are free to quote with attribution and a link. Where a term links to a full page, that page carries the statute and the date it was read; our state-law provenance is downloadable at the datasets page.
Working out what you actually need rather than what a word means? The gap-first checklist names what skipping each document costs, and the estate planning front door lays out the whole machine. Method: methodology. Mistakes: corrections.
In-force illustration. A free report from the insurer showing what a permanent life policy will do from here, at the guaranteed rate and at the current one — as opposed to the illustration produced when it was sold. The gap between the two documents is the whole story of the policy. Full page.
Accelerated death benefit. A life-policy provision paying part of the death benefit early, under section 101(g). On the terminal branch (death expected within 24 months) the money is spendable on anything. On the chronic-illness branch it is tax-free only for long-term care costs already incurred and not paid by anything else, subject to a per diem cap — which makes it a reimbursement, not the cash the marketing implies. Full page.
Qualified long-term care rider (7702B). A rider treated by statute as accident and health insurance. Section 7702B constrains it tightly: the only protection it may provide is coverage of qualified long-term care services, and it may carry no cash surrender value that can be paid, assigned, pledged or borrowed. It is genuine care coverage, which an accelerated death benefit is not. Full page.
Insurable interest. The requirement that whoever takes out a life policy has a genuine stake in the insured continuing to live — family, financial dependence, a business relationship. It is tested when the policy is issued, not when it pays, which is why a policy validly issued years ago survives the relationship ending. Full page.
Graded death benefit. A feature of small guaranteed-issue policies, usually sold for final expenses: if death occurs within the first two or three years and is not accidental, the policy returns the premiums (often with interest) rather than the face amount. The buyer’s worry and the exclusion cover the same window. Full page.
MIB. The member-owned exchange, formerly the Medical Information Bureau, through which life insurers share coded underwriting information about applicants. A previous application and what was disclosed on it can therefore surface in a later one. We have no full page on underwriting yet, so this definition stands alone rather than pointing somewhere that does not exist.
RUFADAA. The Revised Uniform Fiduciary Access to Digital Assets Act — the near-universal state law setting who may access a deceased person’s online accounts, and in what order of priority. Full page.
Teaching from these terms? The workshop modules pull glossary extracts by anchor, so a single definition can be printed or quoted on its own.