Terms Used In Arizona Laws > Title 14 > Chapter 1 > Article 2 - Definitions

• Action: includes any matter or proceeding in a court, civil or criminal. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Adult: means a person who has attained eighteen years of age. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• 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.
• Annuity: A periodic (usually annual) payment of a fixed sum of money for either the life of the recipient or for a fixed number of years. A series of payments under a contract from an insurance company, a trust company, or an individual. Annuity payments are made at regular intervals over a period of more than one full year.
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Attorney-in-fact: A person who, acting as an agent, is given written authorization by another person to transact business for him (her) out of court.
• 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: 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 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
• 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.
• 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
• Conservator: means a person who is appointed by a court to manage the estate of a protected person. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Contract: A legal written agreement that becomes binding when signed.
• Corporation: A legal entity owned by the holders of shares of stock that have been issued, and that can own, receive, and transfer property, and carry on business in its own name.
• 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.
• 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
• Distributee: means any person who has received property of a decedent from that person's personal representative other than as a creditor or purchaser. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Donee: The recipient of 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
• 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
• 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
• Grantee: includes every person to whom an estate or interest in real property passes, in or by a deed. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• 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.
• Guardian: means a person who has qualified as a guardian of a minor or incapacitated person pursuant to testamentary or court appointment but excludes a person who is merely a guardian ad litem. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Guardian ad litem: includes a person who is appointed pursuant to section 14-1408. 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
• Incapacitated person: means any person who is impaired by reason of mental illness, mental deficiency, mental disorder, physical illness or disability, chronic use of drugs, chronic intoxication or other cause, except minority, to the extent that he lacks sufficient understanding or capacity to make or communicate responsible decisions concerning his person. See Arizona Laws 14-5101
• including: means not limited to and is not a term of exclusion. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• 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.
• 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.
• Lease: includes any oil, gas or other mineral lease. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Lease: A contract transferring the use of property or occupancy of land, space, structures, or equipment in consideration of a payment (e.g., rent). ^{Source: OCC}
• Letters: includes letters testamentary, letters of guardianship, letters of administration and letters of conservatorship. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Minor: means a person who is under eighteen years of age. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• 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
• Partnership: A voluntary contract between two or more persons to pool some or all of their assets into a business, with the agreement that there will be a proportional sharing of profits and losses.
• Person: means an individual or an organization. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• Personal property: includes money, goods, chattels, things in action and evidences of debt. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• 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
• 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}
• Probate: Proving a will
• Proceeding: includes action at law and suit in equity. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Process: means a citation, writ or summons issued in the course of judicial proceedings. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Property: includes both real and personal property. See Arizona Laws 1-215
• Protected person: means a minor or any other person for whom a conservator has been appointed or any other protective order has been made. See Arizona Laws 14-5101
• Protective proceeding: means a proceeding under section 14-5401 to determine that a person cannot effectively manage or apply his estate to necessary ends, either because he lacks the ability or is otherwise inconvenienced, or because he is a minor, and to secure administration of his estate by a conservator or other appropriate relief. See Arizona Laws 14-5101
• Registrar: means the official of the court who is designated to perform the functions of registrar as provided in section 14-1307. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• 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
• Special administrator: means a personal representative as described by sections 14-3614 through 14-3618. 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
• Successor personal representative: means a personal representative, other than a special administrator, who is appointed to succeed a previously appointed personal representative. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Successors: means persons, other than creditors, who are entitled to property of a decedent under a will or this title. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Supervised administration: refers to the proceedings described in chapter 3, article 5 of this title. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• 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
• Testacy proceeding: means a proceeding to establish a will or determine intestacy. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• testamentary trustee: includes a trustee to whom assets are transferred by will, to the extent of the devised assets. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Tort: A civil wrong or breach of a duty to another person, as outlined by law. A very common tort is negligent operation of a motor vehicle that results in property damage and personal injury in an automobile accident.
• Trust: includes an express trust, private or charitable, with any additions, wherever and however created. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.
• Trustee: includes an original, additional or successor trustee, whether or not appointed or confirmed by the court. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Ward: means a person for whom a guardian has been appointed. See Arizona Laws 14-5101
• Will: includes a codicil and any testamentary instrument that merely appoints an executor, revokes or revises another will, nominates a guardian or expressly excludes or limits the right of an individual or class to succeed to property of the decedent passing by intestate succession. See Arizona Laws 14-1201
• Writing: includes printing. See Arizona Laws 1-215