Terms Used In New Jersey Statutes > Title 3B > Chapter 3 - Individuals Competent to Make a Will and Appoint a Testamentary Guardian

• Administrator: includes general administrators of an intestate and unless restricted by the subject or context, administrators with the will annexed, substituted administrators, substituted administrators with the will annexed, temporary administrators and administrators pendente lite. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• Affidavit: A written statement of facts confirmed by the oath of the party making it, before a notary or officer having authority to administer oaths.
• 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}
• Child: means any individual, including a natural or adopted child, entitled to take by intestate succession from the parent whose relationship is involved and excludes any individual who is only a stepchild, a resource family child, a grandchild or any more remote descendant. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• 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.
• Complaint: A written statement by the plaintiff stating the wrongs allegedly committed by the defendant.
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deposition: An oral statement made before an officer authorized by law to administer oaths. Such statements are often taken to examine potential witnesses, to obtain discovery, or to be used later in trial.
• 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 New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• Devise: To gift property by will.
• Devisee: means any person designated in a will to receive a devise. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Estate: means all of the property of a decedent, minor or incapacitated individual, trust or other person whose affairs are subject to this title as the property is originally constituted and as it exists from time to time during administration. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• 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
• Fee simple: Absolute title to property with no limitations or restrictions regarding the person who may inherit it.
• Fiduciary: A trustee, executor, or administrator.
• Fiduciary: includes executors, general administrators of an intestate estate, administrators with the will annexed, substituted administrators, substituted administrators with the will annexed, guardians, substituted guardians, trustees, substituted trustees and, unless restricted by the subject or context, temporary administrators, administrators pendente lite, administrators ad prosequendum, administrators ad litem and other limited fiduciaries. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• 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 the designation "pay on death" (POD) or "transfer on death" (TOD), security registered in beneficiary form with the designation "pay on death" (POD) or "transfer on death" (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. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• Guardian: means a person who has qualified as a guardian of the person or estate of a minor or incapacitated individual pursuant to testamentary or court appointment, but excludes one who is merely a guardian ad litem. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• 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.
• Heirs: means those persons, including, but not limited to, the surviving spouse, the domestic partner and the descendants of the decedent, who are entitled under the statutes of intestate succession to the property of a decedent. See New Jersey Statutes 3B:1-1
• 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.
• Lineal descendant: Direct descendant of the same ancestors.
• Mortgage: The written agreement pledging property to a creditor as collateral for a loan.
• 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.
• person: includes corporations, companies, associations, societies, firms, partnerships and joint stock companies as well as individuals, unless restricted by the context to an individual as distinguished from a corporate entity or specifically restricted to one or some of the above enumerated synonyms and, when used to designate the owner of property which may be the subject of an offense, includes this State, the United States, any other State of the United States as defined infra and any foreign country or government lawfully owning or possessing property within this State. See New Jersey Statutes 1:1-2
• 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}
• Probable cause: A reasonable ground for belief that the offender violated a specific law.
• Probate: Proving a will
• Right of survivorship: The ownership rights that result in the acquisition of title to property by reason of having survived other co-owners.
• State: extends to and includes any State, territory or possession of the United States, the District of Columbia and the Canal Zone. See New Jersey Statutes 1:1-2
• sworn: includes "affirmed. See New Jersey Statutes 1:1-2
• Testator: A male person who leaves a will at death.
• Testify: Answer questions in court.
• Testimony: Evidence presented orally by witnesses during trials or before grand juries.
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.