Legacy - Definition - Law Dictionary Home Dictionary Definition legacy

Definition :

Legacy [fr. legatum, Lat.]. A legacy is a gift of personalty by will, and, arising as it does from the mere bounty of the testator, it is postponed to the claims of creditors. There are four kinds of legacies:-(1) General, when it does not amount to a bequest of any particular thing or money, as distinguished from all others of the same kind; as if a testator give A. 50l. or a diamond ring, not referring to any particular diamond ring as distinguished from others. (2) Specific, when it is a bequest of a particular thing, or sum of money, or debt, as distinguished from all others of the same kind, as if a testator give B. 'my diamond ring.' (3) Demonstrative, when it is in its nature a general legacy, but there is a particular fund pointed out to satisfy it, as if a testator bequeath 1,000l. out of his Reduced Bank Three per Cents. And (4) Cumulative, or substitutional, when a testator by the same testamentary instrument, or by different testamentary instruments, has bequeathed more than one legacy to the same person, and the question arises whether he intended the second legacy to be cumulative--i.e., in addition to the first, or substitutional for it. If by different instruments he has given legacies of equal, greater, or lesser sums to the same person, the Court, considering that he who has given more than once must, prima facie, be intended to mean more than one gift, awards to the legatee all the legacies. If, however, they are not given simpliciter, but the motive of the gift is expressed, and in such instruments the same motive is expressed, and also the same sum is given, the Court considers these two coincidences as raising a presumption that the testator did not by a subsequent instrument mean another gift, but a repetition only of the former gift. See CUMULATIVE LEGACIES.

A legacy not exceeding ' 500l. can be recovered in the County Court, by s. 67 of the (English) County Courts Act, 1888, taken from the repealed Act of 1865, which first gave an equitable jurisdiction to County Courts. See now (English) County Courts Act, 1934, s. 52.

Pecuniary legacies bear interest from the expiration of twelve months from the testator's death; the executor may pay them before, but he is not compelled to do so.

Upon and subject to the particular construction of the will, if a legacy be bequeathed to a person to be paid or payable at the age of twenty-one, or any other age or certain determinate term, and the legatee die before that age, this is such an interest vested in the legatee immediately on the testator's death, that it goes to his executor or administrator, it being debitum in pr'senti, though solvendum infuturo, the time being annexed to the payment and not to the gift itself; but if a legacy be bequeathed to a person at twenty-one, or if, or when, or in case, or provided he shall attain twenty-one, or at any future definite period, and he die before that age or period, the legacy lapses, these expressions being construed as annexing the time to the substance of the legacy, so that the right of the legatee is made to depend upon his being alive at the time fixed for its payment. The giving of interest on a legacy to a legatee, let the interest be ever so small, or a provision for his maintenance until the time for payment of the legacy, provided it be equal in amount to the interest, as a rule, vests the legacy; but not, it seems, where the legacy is payable out of land, much less where anything appears on the will to show that the legacy was not intended to vest. See ADEMPTION; ABATEMENT; LAPSE; MAINTENANCE and SATISACTION. Consult Roper on Legacies; Theobald on Wills.

In the Roman Law a legacy was an injunction given to the heir to pay or give over a part of the inheritance to a third person. for its four kinds, see Sand. Just., 7th Edn. 222, or Cum. Civ. Law, 160.