Terms Used In CFR > Title 30 > Chapter I > Subchapter H - Education and Training

• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Chambers: A judge's office.
• Codicil: An addition, change, or supplement to a will executed with the same formalities required for the will itself.
• Decedent: A deceased person.
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• 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: To gift property by will.
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Dower: A widow
• 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}
• Escrow: Money given to a third party to be held for payment until certain conditions are met.
• Executor: A male person named in a will to carry out the decedent
• Fair market value: The price at which an asset would change hands in a transaction between a willing, informed buyer and a willing, informed seller.
• Freedom of Information Act: A federal law that mandates that all the records created and kept by federal agencies in the executive branch of government must be open for public inspection and copying. The only exceptions are those records that fall into one of nine exempted categories listed in the statute. ^{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.
• Hearsay: Statements by a witness who did not see or hear the incident in question but heard about it from someone else. Hearsay is usually not admissible as evidence in court.
• Interrogatories: Written questions asked by one party of an opposing party, who must answer them in writing under oath; a discovery device in a lawsuit.
• Intestate: Dying without leaving a will.
• Law of descent: The State statutes that specify how a deceased person
• Life estate: A property interest limited in duration to the life of the individual holding the interest (life tenant).
• Lineal descendant: Direct descendant of the same ancestors.
• Oath: A promise to tell the truth.
• 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
• Plea: In a criminal case, the defendant's statement pleading "guilty" or "not guilty" in answer to the charges, a declaration made in open court.
• Pleadings: Written statements of the parties in a civil case of their positions. In the federal courts, the principal pleadings are the complaint and the answer.
• Probate: Proving a will
• restricted property: as used in this part does not include the restricted lands of the Five Civilized Tribes of Oklahoma or the Osage Nation. See 43 CFR 30.101
• Subpoena: A command to a witness to appear and give testimony.
• Testate: To die leaving a will.
• Testator: A male person who leaves a will at death.
• Testify: Answer questions in court.