Wills Scotland Jargon Buster

Will: A legal document which sets out the wishes of the testator for the distribution of his or her estate and certain other matters after his or her death.

Just Debts: These are the justifiable debts owed to other parties following death. They can include the funeral expenses, the funeral tea, mortgage payments, rent, utility bills, the expenses of administering your estate, tax or anything else which you would have been obliged to pay in life.

Legacy: Is a gift made to someone in a Will, perhaps a specific item, money, land or a house.

Legatee: Some who receives a Legacy

Residue: The remainder of your estate after paying Just Debts and Legacies, though not always, this is usually the largest and most important part of an estate.

Beneficiary: Anyone who receives the benefit of the whole or a part of the Residue of your estate.

Representation: The provision where if your named Beneficiary fails to survive you that beneficiary’s children will receive equally between them the share of your estate that their parent would have inherited had they survived.

Executors: Those people you choose to carry out your wishes as detailed in your Will.

Inheritance Tax: A 40% tax payable on larger estates with a value over the current Inheritance Tax threshold.

Guardian: Normally, in this context, a person with legal control or responsibility for a child or young person under the age of 16 years.

Pre-decease: This term in a Will refers to the possibility that a Legatee or Beneficiary dies before the person making the Will and as a result their share can not be given to them.

Intestate: When someone dies without making a Will they are said to have died intestate. However, if a person makes a Will but part of their wishes cannot be carried out, perhaps because a beneficiary has died before them and there is no provision as to what should happen to their share of the estate, then that part of the estate could fall into what is called “Intestacy”

Testator: A person who makes a Will.

Trust: An arrangement under which a person(s) (named the Trustee(s)) hold and manage property for the benefit of another. This arrangement in a Will is most commonly used to protect children beneficiaries.

Domicile: Under Scots Law your domicile is considered to be Scotland in the following circumstances:-

A. You live in Scotland on a permanent basis. It does not matter whether you were born in Scotland or moved here from another country provided Scotland is now your permanent place of residence; or

B. You normally satisfy the requirement at paragraph A above but you are temporarily living abroad with the full intention of returning to Scotland.