Subject to additional definitions contained in the subsequent articles that are applicable to specific articles, parts, or sections, and unless the context otherwise requires, in this chapter:

“Agent” includes an attorney-in-fact under a durable or nondurable power of attorney, an individual authorized to make decisions concerning another’s health care, and an individual authorized to make decisions for another under a natural death act.

“Application” means a written request to the registrar for an order of informal probate or appointment under part 3 of article III.

“Assisted reproduction” means a method of causing pregnancy other than sexual intercourse.

“Beneficiary”, as it relates to a:

(1) “Beneficiary designated in a governing instrument”, means a :

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Terms Used In Hawaii Revised Statutes 560:1-201

• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Attorney-in-fact: A person who, acting as an agent, is given written authorization by another person to transact business for him (her) out of court.
• Beneficiary: A person who is entitled to receive the benefits or proceeds of a will, trust, insurance policy, retirement plan, annuity, or other contract. ^{Source: OCC}
• Codicil: An addition, change, or supplement to a will executed with the same formalities required for the will itself.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Devise: To gift property by will.
• Donee: The recipient of a gift.
• Evidence: Information presented in testimony or in documents that is used to persuade the fact finder (judge or jury) to decide the case for one side or the other.
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Guardian: A person legally empowered and charged with the duty of taking care of and managing the property of another person who because of age, intellect, or health, is incapable of managing his (her) own affairs.
• Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
• Jurisdiction: (1) The legal authority of a court to hear and decide a case. Concurrent jurisdiction exists when two courts have simultaneous responsibility for the same case. (2) The geographic area over which the court has authority to decide cases.
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Power of attorney: A written instrument which authorizes one person to act as another's agent or attorney. The power of attorney may be for a definite, specific act, or it may be general in nature. The terms of the written power of attorney may specify when it will expire. If not, the power of attorney usually expires when the person granting it dies. ^{Source: OCC}
• Probate: Proving a will
• Tort: A civil wrong or breach of a duty to another person, as outlined by law. A very common tort is negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results in property damage and personal injury in an automobile accident.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.

(A) Grantee of a deed;

(B) Devisee;

(C) Trust beneficiary;

(D) Beneficiary of a beneficiary designation;

(E) Donee, appointee, or taker in default of a power of appointment; or

(F) Person in whose favor a power of attorney or a power held in any individual, fiduciary, or representative capacity is exercised;

“Beneficiary designation” refers to a governing instrument naming a beneficiary of an insurance or annuity policy, of an account with POD designation, of a security registered in beneficiary form (TOD), or of a pension, profit-sharing, retirement, or similar benefit plan, or other nonprobate transfer at death.

“Child” includes an individual entitled to take as a child under this chapter by intestate succession from the parent whose relationship is involved and excludes a person who is only a stepchild, a foster child, a grandchild, or any more remote descendant.

“Claims”, in respect to estates of decedents and protected persons, includes liabilities of the decedent or protected person, whether arising in contract, in tort, or otherwise, and liabilities of the estate which arise at or after the death of the decedent or after the appointment of a conservator, including funeral expenses and expenses of administration. The term does not include estate or inheritance taxes, or demands or disputes regarding title of a decedent or protected person to specific assets alleged to be included in the estate.

“Court” means the circuit court in this State having jurisdiction in matters relating to the affairs of decedents.

“Conservator” shall have the meaning provided in § 560:5-102.

“Descendant” of an individual means all of the individual’s descendants of all generations, with the relationship of parent and child at each generation being determined by the definition of child and parent contained in this chapter.

“Devise”, when used as a noun, means a testamentary disposition of real or personal property and, when used as a verb, means to dispose of real or personal property by will.

“Devisee” means a person designated in a will to receive a devise. For the purposes of article II, in the case of a devise to an existing trust or trustee, or to a trustee on trust described by will, the trust or trustee is the devisee and the beneficiaries are not devisees.

“Distributee” means any person who has received property of a decedent from the decedent’s personal representative other than as a creditor or purchaser. A testamentary trustee is a distributee only to the extent of distributed assets or increment thereto remaining in the trustee’s hands. A beneficiary of a testamentary trust to whom the trustee has distributed property received from a personal representative is a distributee of the personal representative. For the purposes of this provision, “testamentary trustee” includes a trustee to whom assets are transferred by will, to the extent of the devised assets.

“Estate” includes the property of the decedent, trust, or other person whose affairs are subject to this chapter as originally constituted and as it exists from time to time during administration.

“Exempt property” means that property of a decedent’s estate which is described in § 560:2-403.

“Fiduciary” includes a personal representative, guardian, conservator, and trustee.

“Foreign personal representative” means a personal representative appointed by another jurisdiction.

“Formal proceedings” means proceedings conducted before a judge with notice to interested persons.

“Governing instrument” means a deed, will, trust, insurance or annuity policy, account with POD designation, security registered in beneficiary form (TOD), pension, profit-sharing, retirement, or similar benefit plan, instrument creating or exercising a power of appointment or a power of attorney, or a dispositive, appointive, or nominative instrument of any similar type.

“Guardian” shall have the meaning provided in § 560:5-102.

“Heirs”, except as controlled by section 560:2-711, means persons, including the surviving spouse or reciprocal beneficiary and the State, who are entitled under the statutes of intestate succession to the property of a decedent.

“Incapacitated person” shall have the meaning provided in § 560:5-102.

“Informal proceedings” means those conducted without notice to interested persons by an officer of the court acting as a registrar for probate of a will or appointment of a personal representative.

“Interested person” includes heirs, devisees, children, spouses or reciprocal beneficiaries, creditors, beneficiaries, and any others having a property right in or claim against a trust estate or the estate of a decedent, ward, or protected person. It also includes persons having priority for appointment as personal representative, and other fiduciaries representing interested persons. The meaning as it relates to particular persons may vary from time to time and must be determined according to the particular purposes of, and matter involved in, any proceeding.

“Issue” of an individual means descendant as defined in this section.

“Joint tenants with the right of survivorship” and “community property with the right of survivorship” includes tenancies by the entirety and co-ownership of property held under circumstances that entitle one or more owners to the whole of the property on the death of the other or others, but excludes forms of co-ownership registration in which the underlying ownership of each party is in proportion to that party’s contribution.

“Lease” includes an oil, gas, or other mineral lease.

“Letters” includes letters testamentary, letters of guardianship, letters of administration, and letters of conservatorship. Unless otherwise provided by order of the court or registrar, letters testamentary and letters of administration shall only be effective for three years unless renewed for good cause, and such limitation shall be stated on the face of the letters.

“Minor” shall have the meaning provided in § 560:5-102.

“Mortgage” means any conveyance, agreement, or arrangement in which property is encumbered or used as security.

“Nonresident decedent” means a decedent who was domiciled in another jurisdiction at the time of decedent’s death.

“Organization” means a corporation, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, joint venture, association, government or governmental subdivision or agency, or any other legal or commercial entity.

“Parent” includes any person entitled to take, or who would be entitled to take if the child died without a will, as a parent under this chapter by intestate succession from the child whose relationship is in question and excludes any person who is only a stepparent, foster parent, or grandparent.

“Payor” means a trustee, insurer, business entity, employer, government, governmental agency or subdivision, or any other person authorized or obligated by law or a governing instrument to make payments.

“Person” means an individual or an organization.

“Personal representative” includes executor, administrator, successor personal representative, special administrator, and persons who perform substantially the same function under the law governing their status. “General personal representative” excludes special administrator.

“Petition” means a written request to the court for an order after notice.

“Probate proceeding” means a formal or informal proceeding to probate a will, formal or informal proceeding to appoint a personal representative, or formal proceeding to adjudicate intestacy.

“Proceeding” includes action at law and suit in equity.

“Property” includes both real and personal property or any interest therein and means anything that may be the subject of ownership.

“Protected person” shall have the meaning provided in § 560:5-102.

“Protective proceeding” means a proceeding held pursuant to part 4 of article V.

“Record” means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form.

“Registrar” refers to the official of the court designated to perform the functions of registrar as provided in section 560:1-307.

“Security” includes any note, stock, treasury stock, bond, debenture, evidence of indebtedness, certificate of interest or participation in an oil, gas, or mining title or lease or in payments out of production under such a title or lease, collateral trust certificate, transferable share, voting trust certificate or, in general, any interest or instrument commonly known as a security, or any certificate of interest or participation, any temporary or interim certificate, receipt, or certificate of deposit for, or any warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase, any of the foregoing.

“Settlement”, in reference to a decedent’s estate, includes the full process of administration, distribution, and closing.

“Sign” means, with present intent to authenticate or adopt a record other than a will, to:

“Special administrator” means a personal representative as described by sections 560:3-614 through 560:3-618.

“State” means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, or any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction of the United States.

“Successor personal representative” means a personal representative, other than a special administrator, who is appointed to succeed a previously appointed personal representative.

“Successors” means persons, other than creditors, who are entitled to property of a decedent under the decedent’s will or this chapter.

“Supervised administration” refers to the proceedings described in article III, part 5.

“Survive” means that an individual has neither predeceased an event, including the death of another individual, nor is deemed to have predeceased an event under § 560:2-104 or 560:2-702. The term includes its derivatives, such as “survives”, “survived”, “survivor”, “surviving”.

“Testacy proceeding” means a proceeding to establish a will or determine intestacy.

“Testator” includes an individual of either sex.

“Trust” includes an express trust, private or charitable, with additions thereto, wherever and however created. The term also includes a trust created or determined by judgment or decree under which the trust is to be administered in the manner of an express trust. The term excludes other constructive trusts and excludes resulting trusts, conservatorships, personal representatives, trust accounts as defined in article VI, custodial arrangements pursuant to chapters 553A and 554B, business trusts providing for certificates to be issued to beneficiaries, common trust funds, voting trusts, security arrangements, liquidation trusts, and trusts for the primary purpose of paying debts, dividends, interest, salaries, wages, profits, pensions, or employee benefits of any kind, and any arrangement under which a person is nominee or escrowee for another.

“Trustee” includes an original, additional, or successor trustee, whether or not appointed or confirmed by court.

“Ward” shall have the meaning provided in § 560:5-102.

“Will” includes codicil and any testamentary instrument that merely appoints an executor, revokes or revises another will, nominates a guardian, or expressly excludes or limits the right of an individual or class to succeed to property of the decedent passing by intestate succession.