Terms Used In Virginia Code > Title 13.1 > Chapter 9 > Article 15 - Appraisal Rights and Other Remedies

• Adult: means a person 18 years of age or more. See Virginia Code 1-203
• 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.
• Affiliate: means a person who directly or indirectly through one or more intermediaries controls, is controlled by, or is under common control with another person or is a senior executive officer of such person. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Amendment: A proposal to alter the text of a pending bill or other measure by striking out some of it, by inserting new language, or both. Before an amendment becomes part of the measure, thelegislature must agree to it.
• Appeal: A request made after a trial, asking another court (usually the court of appeals) to decide whether the trial was conducted properly. To make such a request is "to appeal" or "to take an appeal." One who appeals is called the appellant.
• Appraisal: A determination of property value.
• Articles of incorporation: means all documents constituting, at any particular time, the charter of a corporation. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Assets: (1) The property comprising the estate of a deceased person, or (2) the property in a trust account.
• Bankruptcy: Refers to statutes and judicial proceedings involving persons or businesses that cannot pay their debts and seek the assistance of the court in getting a fresh start. Under the protection of the bankruptcy court, debtors may discharge their debts, perhaps by paying a portion of each debt. Bankruptcy judges preside over these proceedings.
• Beneficial owner: means any person who, directly or indirectly, through any contract, arrangement, or understanding, other than a revocable proxy, has or shares the power to vote, or to direct the voting of, shares; except that a member of a national securities exchange is not deemed to be a beneficial owner of securities held directly or indirectly by it on behalf of another person solely because the member is the record holder of the securities if the member is precluded by the rules of the exchange from voting without instruction on contested matters or matters that may affect substantially the rights or privileges of the holders of the securities to be voted. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Beneficial shareholder: means a person who is the beneficial owner of shares held in a voting trust or by a nominee on the beneficial owner's behalf. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Board of supervisors: means the governing body of a county. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• City: means an independent incorporated community which became a city as provided by law before noon on July 1, 1971, or which has within defined boundaries a population of 5,000 or more and which has become a city as provided by law. See Virginia Code 1-208
• Commission: means the State Corporation Commission of Virginia. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• 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.
• 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.
• Corporation: means the domestic corporation that is the issuer of the shares held by a shareholder demanding appraisal and, for matters covered by §§ 13. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Council: means the governing body of a city or town. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• County: means any existing county or such unit hereafter created. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• Creditor process: means all methods used by creditors to collect unsecured debts. See Virginia Code 34-1
• Damages: Money paid by defendants to successful plaintiffs in civil cases to compensate the plaintiffs for their injuries.
• Debt: means a legally enforceable monetary obligation or liability of any individual whether arising out of a contract or otherwise, but not an obligation resulting from an intentional tort. See Virginia Code 34-1
• Deed: The legal instrument used to transfer title in real property from one person to another.
• Department: means the State Department of Health. See Virginia Code 32.1-3
• Dependent: A person dependent for support upon another.
• Development: means a tract of land developed or to be developed as a unit under single ownership or unified control which is to be used for any business or industrial purpose or is to contain three or more residential dwelling units. See Virginia Code 15.2-2201
• Discovery: Lawyers' examination, before trial, of facts and documents in possession of the opponents to help the lawyers prepare for trial.
• Disposition of assets: means any action undertaken by a nonprofit entity to dispose of control of all or substantially all of its assets pursuant to an agreement of sale, transfer, lease, exchange, option, joint venture, or partnership, or to convert to a for-profit entity or to otherwise restructure the nonprofit entity or its assets, resulting in a change in control or governance of the entity or assets. See Virginia Code 32.1-373
• domestic corporation: means a corporation authorized by law to issue shares, irrespective of the nature of the business to be transacted, organized under this chapter or existing pursuant to the laws of the Commonwealth on January 1, 1986, or which, by virtue of articles of incorporation, amendment, or merger, has become a domestic corporation of the Commonwealth, even though also being a corporation organized under laws other than the laws of the Commonwealth, or that has become a domestic corporation of the Commonwealth pursuant to Article 12. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Entity: includes any domestic or foreign corporation; any domestic or foreign nonstock corporation; any domestic or foreign unincorporated entity; any estate or trust; and any state, the United States and any foreign government. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• 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}
• 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.
• Exempt: means protected from all forms of creditor process. See Virginia Code 34-1
• Exemption: means protection from all forms of creditor process. See Virginia Code 34-1
• Expenses: means reasonable expenses of any kind that are incurred in connection with a matter. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Fair value: means the value of the corporation's shares determined:

  1. See Virginia Code 13.1-729

• Fee simple: Absolute title to property with no limitations or restrictions regarding the person who may inherit it.
• Foreign corporation: means a corporation authorized by law to issue shares, organized under laws other than the laws of the Commonwealth. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Fraud: Intentional deception resulting in injury to another.
• 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}
• Garnishment: Generally, garnishment is a court proceeding in which a creditor asks a court to order a third party who owes money to the debtor or otherwise holds assets belonging to the debtor to turn over to the creditor any of the debtor
• Governing body: means the board of supervisors of a county, council of a city, or council of a town, as the context may require. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• Grantor: The person who establishes a trust and places property into it.
• Householder: means any resident of Virginia. See Virginia Code 34-1
• in writing: include any representation of words, letters, symbols, numbers, or figures, whether (i) printed or inscribed on a tangible medium or (ii) stored in an electronic or other medium and retrievable in a perceivable form and whether an electronic signature authorized by Chapter 42. See Virginia Code 1-257
• Includes: means includes, but not limited to. See Virginia Code 1-218
• Interest: means interest from the date the corporate action becomes effective until the date of payment, at the average rate currently paid by the corporation on its principal bank loans or, if none, at a rate that is fair and equitable under all the circumstances. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Interested person: means a person, or an affiliate of a person, who at any time during the one-year period immediately preceding approval by the board of directors of the corporate action:

  a. See Virginia Code 13.1-729

• Interested transaction: means a corporate action described in subsection A of § 13. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• 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: 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}
• Liabilities: The aggregate of all debts and other legal obligations of a particular person or legal entity.
• Lien: A claim against real or personal property in satisfaction of a debt.
• Local planning commission: means a municipal planning commission or a county planning commission. See Virginia Code 15.2-2201
• Locality: means a county, city, or town as the context may require. See Virginia Code 1-221
• Merger: means a transaction pursuant to § 13. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Month: means a calendar month and "year" means a calendar year. See Virginia Code 1-223
• Nonprofit entity: means (i) a foreign or domestic nonstock corporation licensed and subject to regulation under Chapter 42 of Title 38. See Virginia Code 32.1-373
• Notary: means notary public. See Virginia Code 1-226
• Obligation: An order placed, contract awarded, service received, or similar transaction during a given period that will require payments during the same or a future period.
• 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, corporation, partnership, or association or any other legal entity. See Virginia Code 32.1-3
• Person: includes an individual and an entity. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Person: includes any individual, corporation, partnership, association, cooperative, limited liability company, trust, joint venture, government, political subdivision, or any other legal or commercial entity and any successor, representative, agent, agency, or instrumentality thereof. See Virginia Code 1-230
• Personal property: All property that is not real property.
• plat of subdivision: means the schematic representation of land divided or to be divided and information in accordance with the provisions of §§ 15. See Virginia Code 15.2-2201
• Preferred shares: means a class or series of shares whose holders have preference over any other class or series of shares with respect to distributions. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Preliminary subdivision plat: means the proposed schematic representation of development or subdivision that establishes how the provisions of §§ 15. See Virginia Code 15.2-2201
• Principal office: means the office, in or out of the Commonwealth, where the principal executive offices of a domestic or foreign corporation are located, or, if there are no such offices, the office, in or out of the Commonwealth, so designated by the board of directors. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Proceeding: includes civil suit and criminal, administrative, and investigatory action. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Process: includes subpoenas, the summons and complaint in a civil action, and process in statutory actions. See Virginia Code 1-237
• Public corporation: means a corporation that has shares listed on a national securities exchange or regularly traded in a market maintained by one or more members of a national or affiliated securities association. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• real estate: includes lands, tenements and hereditaments, and all rights and appurtenances thereto and interests therein, other than a chattel interest. See Virginia Code 1-219
• Real property: Land, and all immovable fixtures erected on, growing on, or affixed to the land.
• Record date: means the date fixed for determining the identity of the corporation's shareholders and their shareholdings for purposes of this chapter. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Record shareholder: means (i) the person in whose name shares are registered in the records of the corporation or (ii) the person identified as the beneficial owner of shares in a beneficial ownership certificate pursuant to § 13. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Secretary: means the corporate officer or other individual to whom the board of directors has delegated responsibility under subsection C of § 13. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Senior executive: means the chief executive officer, chief operating officer, chief financial officer and anyone in charge of a principal business unit or function. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Share exchange: means a transaction pursuant to § 13. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Shareholder: means a record shareholder, a beneficial shareholder, and a voting trust beneficial owner. See Virginia Code 13.1-729
• Shares: means the units into which the proprietary interests in a corporation are divided. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Site plan: means the proposal for a development or a subdivision including all covenants, grants or easements and other conditions relating to use, location and bulk of buildings, density of development, common open space, public facilities and such other information as required by the subdivision ordinance to which the proposed development or subdivision is subject. See Virginia Code 15.2-2201
• State: when applied to a part of the United States, includes any of the 50 states, the District of Columbia, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands, and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-245
• state agency: means the same as that term is defined in § 2. See Virginia Code 1-206
• Street: means highway, street, avenue, boulevard, road, lane, alley, or any public way. See Virginia Code 15.2-2201
• Subsidiary: means , as to any corporation, any other corporation of which it owns, directly or indirectly, voting shares entitled to cast a majority of the votes entitled to be cast generally in an election of directors of such other corporation. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• sworn: means "affirm" or "affirmed. See Virginia Code 1-250
• 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.
• Town: means any existing town or an incorporated community within one or more counties which became a town before noon, July one, nineteen hundred seventy-one, as provided by law or which has within defined boundaries a population of 1,000 or more and which has become a town as provided by law. See Virginia Code 15.2-102
• Trial: A hearing that takes place when the defendant pleads "not guilty" and witnesses are required to come to court to give evidence.
• United States: includes the 50 states, the District of Columbia the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, Guam, the Northern Mariana Islands and the United States Virgin Islands. See Virginia Code 1-255
• Voting group: means all shares of one or more classes or series that under the articles of incorporation or this chapter are entitled to vote and be counted together collectively on a matter at a meeting of shareholders. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Voting power: means the current power to vote in the election of directors. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• Voting trust beneficial owner: means an owner of a beneficial interest in shares of the corporation held in a voting trust established pursuant to subsection A of § 13. See Virginia Code 13.1-603
• written: means any information in the form of a document. See Virginia Code 13.1-603