Terms Used In New Jersey Statutes > Title 3B > Chapter 27 - Death of Resident or Nonresident Presumed After 5 Years' Absence or Exposure to Specific Catastrophic Event

• Common law: The legal system that originated in England and is now in use in the United States. It is based on judicial decisions rather than legislative action.
• 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.
• 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.
• 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
• 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
• 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.
• 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
• 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
• Trustee: A person or institution holding and administering property in trust.