Demonstrative legacy meaning

See Q&A: How does abatement apply where a testator has left £50,000 to trustees on discretionary trusts and £50,000 to a family member, but there are insufficient funds to settle the legacies in their entirety? Whether abatement operates hinges on how the legacies are characterised, which itself follows from the construction of the Will in question. Legacies fall into three classes: general, specific, and demonstrative. A general legacy is...

Legacy or bequest The expressions ‘legacy’ and ‘bequest’ are ordinarily confined to a sum of money or a personal item, though in some situations they can also denote a gift or devise of land. Furthermore, whether a ‘legacy’ encompasses an annuity turns on the context. Sir William Page Wood VC, in Gaskin v Rogers, explained that where a Will merely uses the word ‘legacy’ and directs a distribution amongst legatees, then, unless the face of the Will shows the testator has departed from the word’s settled legal meaning, annuitants are included. He added that the term ‘pecuniary legatees’ does no more than exclude specific legatees—namely, those entitled to particular chattels—and it does not, prima facie, prevent annuitants receiving the same advantage as they would have enjoyed had the Will spoken simply of ‘legatees’ rather than ‘pecuniary legatees’. All such interpretative rules remain subject to the fundamental principle: determine, from the Will read as a whole, what can be gathered of the testator’s intention where the words employed are not...

Private Client England & Wales glossary A Abatement When, after settling the deceased’s funeral costs, debts and liabilities, the remaining estate cannot satisfy all legacies in full, the gifts are reduced accordingly, unless the Will shows a different intention. In a solvent estate, the order for reduction appears in Part II of Schedule 1 to the Administration of Estates Act 1925. Refer to Practice Note: Payment of legacies. Accruals basis Where income is taxed on an accruals basis, it is attributed to a given tax year by reference to the number of days within that year during which the activity giving rise to the liability accrued. See Practice Note: What is the basis of income tax?. Accumulation and maintenance (A&M) trust A form of non‑interest in possession trust designed to benefit children and young people up to 25, which received favourable inheritance tax treatment between 1975 and 2006. See Practice Note: Accumulation and maintenance trusts—IHT [Archived]. Accredited Legal Representative (ALR) ...

When the doctrines of ademption and abatement are engaged, a line is drawn between specific, general, and demonstrative legacies. Classification of legacies The categories were set out in Walford v Walford in these terms: legacies fall into three groups. As the court there expressed it, and that description is adopted. The explanation distinguishes the nature of each gift without altering their substantive effect under the Will and on administration. A specific legacy is a particular res secured to the beneficiary by the testator’s Will at death; it does not abate even if the remaining estate cannot satisfy general legacies; however, it carries the drawback that, should the precise res which forms the subject of the gift cease to exist in the interim, the legatee receives nothing. At the opposite end lies the general legacy, payable from the residue; this abates if the residue is inadequate, but, prima facie, by a rule of the court’s administration, it bears interest from one year after the testator’s death. Between these sits...