Terms Used In Arizona Laws > Title 14 > Chapter 2 - Intestate Succession and Wills

• Agent: includes an attorney-in-fact under a durable or nondurable power of attorney, a person who is authorized to make decisions concerning another person's health care and a person who is authorized to make decisions for another person under a natural death act. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Appellate: About appeals; an appellate court has the power to review the judgement of another lower court or tribunal.
• Application: means a written request to the registrar for an order of informal probate or appointment under chapter 3, article 3 of this title. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Bank: means a corporation that holds a banking permit issued pursuant to chapter 2 of this title. See Arizona Laws 6-101
• Beneficiary: means an individual for whom property has been transferred to, or held under a declaration of trust by, a custodial trustee for the individual's use and benefit under this chapter. See Arizona Laws 14-9101
• 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}
• Beneficiary designation: refers to a governing instrument naming a beneficiary of an insurance or annuity policy, of an account with pay on death designation, of a security registered in beneficiary form or of a pension, profit sharing, retirement or similar benefit plan, or any other nonprobate transfer at death. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Certified paper original: means a tangible medium that contains both the text of an electronic will and any self-proving affidavit concerning the electronic will and that is accompanied by an affidavit that is executed pursuant to section 14-2523. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Charity: An agency, institution, or organization in existence and operating for the benefit of an indefinite number of persons and conducted for educational, religious, scientific, medical, or other beneficent purposes.
• Child: includes a person who is entitled to take as a child under this title by intestate succession from the parent whose relationship is involved. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Codicil: An addition, change, or supplement to a will executed with the same formalities required for the will itself.
• Common disaster: A sudden and extraordinary misfortune that brings about the simultaneous or near-simultaneous deaths of two or more associated persons, such as husband and wife.
• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• Community property: means that property of a husband and wife that is acquired during the marriage and that is community property as prescribed in section 25-211. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• community property with the right of survivorship: includes co-owners of property held under circumstances that entitle one or more 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. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Conservator: means a person who is appointed by a court to manage the estate of a protected person. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Court: means the superior court. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Department: means the department of insurance and financial institutions. See Arizona Laws 6-101
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Dependent child: means a minor child whom the decedent was obligated to support or an adult child who was in fact being supported by the decedent at the time of the decedent's death. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Deputy director: means the deputy director of the financial institutions division of the department. See Arizona Laws 6-101
• Descendant: means all of the decedent's descendants of all generations, with the relationship of parent and child at each generation. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Devise: To gift property by will.
• 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. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Devisee: means a person designated in a will to receive a devise. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Disability: means cause for a protective order as described in section 14-5401. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Donee: The recipient of a gift.
• Donor: The person who makes a gift.
• Electronic: means having electrical, digital, magnetic, optical, electromagnetic or similar capabilities. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Electronic record: means a record that is created, generated, sent, communicated, received or stored by electronic means. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Electronic signature: means an electronic method or process that does both of the following:

  (a) Is attached to or logically associated with an electronic record and that is executed or adopted by a person with the intent to sign the electronic record. See Arizona Laws 14-1201

• Electronic will: means a testamentary instrument that is executed and maintained on an electronic medium and that is executed in compliance with section 14-2518. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Electronically present: means two or more individuals who are in a different physical location and who are communicating by means of technology that enables all individuals to see and hear each other in real time to the same extent as if the individuals were physically present in the same location. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Entitlement: A Federal program or provision of law that requires payments to any person or unit of government that meets the eligibility criteria established by law. Entitlements constitute a binding obligation on the part of the Federal Government, and eligible recipients have legal recourse if the obligation is not fulfilled. Social Security and veterans' compensation and pensions are examples of entitlement programs.
• Equitable: Pertaining to civil suits in "equity" rather than in "law." In English legal history, the courts of "law" could order the payment of damages and could afford no other remedy. See damages. A separate court of "equity" could order someone to do something or to cease to do something. See, e.g., injunction. In American jurisprudence, the federal courts have both legal and equitable power, but the distinction is still an important one. For example, a trial by jury is normally available in "law" cases but not in "equity" cases. ^{Source: U.S. Courts}
• Estate: includes the property of the decedent, trust or other person whose affairs are subject to this title as originally constituted and as it exists from time to time during administration. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Exempt property: means that property of a decedent's estate that is described in section 14-2403. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Fiduciary: includes a personal representative, guardian, conservator and trustee. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Financial institution: means banks, trust companies, savings and loan associations, credit unions, consumer lenders, international banking facilities and financial institution holding companies under the jurisdiction of the department. See Arizona Laws 6-101
• Foreclosure: A legal process in which property that is collateral or security for a loan may be sold to help repay the loan when the loan is in default. ^{Source: OCC}
• Gift: A voluntary transfer or conveyance of property without consideration, or for less than full and adequate consideration based on fair market value.
• Governing instrument: means a deed, will, trust, insurance or annuity policy, account with pay on death designation, security registered in beneficiary form, pension, profit sharing, retirement or similar benefit plan, instrument creating or exercising a power of appointment or power of attorney or supported decision-making agreement or a dispositive, appointive or nominative instrument of any similar type. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Incapacitated: means lacking the ability to manage property and business affairs effectively by reason of mental illness, mental deficiency, physical illness or disability, chronic use of drugs, chronic intoxication, confinement, detention by a foreign power, disappearance, minority or other disabling cause. See Arizona Laws 14-9101
• Interested person: includes any trustee, heir, devisee, child, spouse, creditor, beneficiary, person holding a power of appointment and other person who has a property right in or claim against a trust estate or the estate of a decedent, ward or protected person. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
• Joint tenancy: A form of property ownership in which two or more parties hold an undivided interest in the same property that was conveyed under the same instrument at the same time. A joint tenant can sell his (her) interest but not dispose of it by will. Upon the death of a joint tenant, his (her) undivided interest is distributed among the surviving joint tenants.
• Minor: means a person who is under eighteen years of age. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Minor children: means persons under eighteen years of age. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• Organization: means a corporation, limited liability company, business trust, estate, trust, partnership, joint venture, association, government or governmental subdivision or agency or any other legal or commercial entity. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Paper will: means a testamentary instrument that is executed and maintained on a tangible medium and that is executed in compliance with section 14-2502 or 14-2503. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• 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 title by intestate succession from the child whose relationship is in question and excludes any person who is only a stepparent, foster parent or grandparent. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Payor: means a trustee, insurer, business entity, employer, government, governmental agency or subdivision or any other person who is authorized or obligated by law or a governing instrument to make payments. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Per stirpes: The legal means by which the children of a decedent, upon the death of an ancestor at a level above that of the decedent, receive by right of representation the share of the ancestor
• Person: means an individual or an organization. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Personal representative: includes an executor, an administrator, a successor personal representative, a special administrator and persons who perform substantially the same function under the law governing their status. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Petition: means a written request to the court for an order after notice. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• 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}
• Precedent: A court decision in an earlier case with facts and law similar to a dispute currently before a court. Precedent will ordinarily govern the decision of a later similar case, unless a party can show that it was wrongly decided or that it differed in some significant way.
• Probate: Proving a will
• Proceeding: includes action at law and suit in equity. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Qualified custodian: means a person who fulfills the requirements of section 14-2520. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
• 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 that title or lease, collateral trust certificate, transferable share or voting trust certificate and, in general, includes 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 these securities. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Separate property: means that property of a husband or wife that is the spouse's separate property as defined in section 25-213. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• State: means a state, territory or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia or the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico. See Arizona Laws 14-9101
• Summons: Another word for subpoena used by the criminal justice system.
• Survive: means that a person has neither predeceased an event, including the death of another person, nor is deemed to have predeceased an event under section 14-2104 or 14-2702. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Tangible medium: means a medium on which information may be inscribed by writing, typing, printing or similar means and that is perceivable by reading directly from the medium on which the information is inscribed. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Testator: includes a person of either sex. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Testator: A male person who leaves a will at death.
• Transferor: means a person who creates a custodial trust by transfer or declaration. See Arizona Laws 14-9101
• Trust: includes an express trust, private or charitable, with any additions, wherever and however created. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Trustee: includes an original, additional or successor trustee, whether or not appointed or confirmed by the court. See Arizona Laws 14-1201