75-1-201 - General definitions. - Utah Statutes

75-1-201. General definitions.
Subject to additional definitions contained in the subsequent chapters that are applicableto specific chapters, parts, or sections, and unless the context otherwise requires, in this code:
(1) "Agent" includes an attorney-in-fact under a durable or nondurable power of attorney,an individual authorized to make decisions concerning another's health care, and an individualauthorized to make decisions for another under a natural death act.
(2) "Application" means a written request to the registrar for an order of informal probateor appointment under Title 75, Chapter 3, Part 3, Informal Probate and AppointmentProceedings.
(3) "Beneficiary," as it relates to trust beneficiaries, includes a person who has anypresent or future interest, vested or contingent, and also includes the owner of an interest byassignment or other transfer; as it relates to a charitable trust, includes any person entitled toenforce the trust; as it relates to a "beneficiary of a beneficiary designation," refers to abeneficiary of an insurance or annuity policy, of an account with POD designation, of a securityregistered in beneficiary form (TOD), or of a pension, profit-sharing, retirement, or similarbenefit plan, or other nonprobate transfer at death; and, as it relates to a "beneficiary designatedin a governing instrument," includes a grantee of a deed, a devisee, a trust beneficiary, abeneficiary of a beneficiary designation, a donee, appointee, or taker in default of a power ofappointment, and a person in whose favor a power of attorney or a power held in any individual,fiduciary, or representative capacity is exercised.
(4) "Beneficiary designation" refers to a governing instrument naming a beneficiary of aninsurance or annuity policy, of an account with POD designation, of a security registered inbeneficiary form (TOD), or of a pension, profit-sharing, retirement, or similar benefit plan, orother nonprobate transfer at death.
(5) "Child" includes any individual entitled to take as a child under this code by intestatesuccession from the parent whose relationship is involved and excludes any person who is only astepchild, a foster child, a grandchild, or any more remote descendant.
(6) "Claims," in respect to estates of decedents and protected persons, includes liabilitiesof the decedent or protected person, whether arising in contract, in tort, or otherwise, andliabilities of the estate which arise at or after the death of the decedent or after the appointment ofa conservator, including funeral expenses and expenses of administration. "Claims" does notinclude estate or inheritance taxes, or demands or disputes regarding title of a decedent orprotected person to specific assets alleged to be included in the estate.
(7) "Conservator" means a person who is appointed by a court to manage the estate of aprotected person.
(8) "Court" means any of the courts of record in this state having jurisdiction in mattersrelating to the affairs of decedents.
(9) "Descendant" of an individual means all of his descendants of all generations, withthe relationship of parent and child at each generation being determined by the definition of childand parent contained in this title.
(10) "Devise," when used as a noun, means a testamentary disposition of real or personalproperty and, when used as a verb, means to dispose of real or personal property by will.
(11) "Devisee" means any person designated in a will to receive a devise. For thepurposes of Title 75, Chapter 3, Probate of Wills and Administration, in the case of a devise to anexisting trust or trustee, or to a trustee in trust described by will, the trust or trustee is the devisee,

and the beneficiaries are not devisees.
(12) "Disability" means cause for a protective order as described by Section 75-5-401.
(13) "Distributee" means any person who has received property of a decedent from hispersonal representative other than as a creditor or purchaser. A testamentary trustee is adistributee only to the extent of distributed assets or increment thereto remaining in his hands. Abeneficiary of a testamentary trust to whom the trustee has distributed property received from apersonal representative is a distributee of the personal representative. For purposes of thisprovision, "testamentary trustee" includes a trustee to whom assets are transferred by will, to theextent of the devised assets.
(14) "Estate" includes the property of the decedent, trust, or other person whose affairsare subject to this title as originally constituted and as it exists from time to time duringadministration.
(15) "Exempt property" means that property of a decedent's estate which is described inSection 75-2-403.
(16) "Fiduciary" includes a personal representative, guardian, conservator, and trustee.
(17) "Foreign personal representative" means a personal representative of anotherjurisdiction.
(18) "Formal proceedings" means proceedings conducted before a judge with notice tointerested persons.
(19) "Governing instrument" means a deed, will, trust, insurance or annuity policy,account with POD designation, security registered in beneficiary form (TOD), pension,profit-sharing, retirement, or similar benefit plan, instrument creating or exercising a power ofappointment or a power of attorney, or a dispositive, appointive, or nominative instrument of anysimilar type.
(20) "Guardian" means a person who has qualified as a guardian of a minor orincapacitated person pursuant to testamentary or court appointment, or by written instrument asprovided in Section 75-5-202.5, but excludes one who is merely a guardian ad litem.
(21) "Heirs," except as controlled by Section 75-2-711, means persons, including thesurviving spouse and state, who are entitled under the statutes of intestate succession to theproperty of a decedent.
(22) "Incapacitated person" means any person who is impaired by reason of mentalillness, mental deficiency, physical illness or disability, chronic use of drugs, chronicintoxication, or other cause, except minority, to the extent of lacking sufficient understanding orcapacity to make or communicate responsible decisions.
(23) "Informal proceedings" mean those conducted without notice to interested personsby an officer of the court acting as a registrar for probate of a will or appointment of a personalrepresentative.
(24) "Interested person" includes heirs, devisees, children, spouses, creditors,beneficiaries, and any others having a property right in or claim against a trust estate or the estateof a decedent, ward, or protected person. It also includes persons having priority for appointmentas personal representative, other fiduciaries representing interested persons, a settlor of a trust, ifliving, or the settlor's legal representative, if any, if the settlor is living but incapacitated. Themeaning as it relates to particular persons may vary from time to time and shall be determinedaccording to the particular purposes of, and matter involved in, any proceeding.
(25) "Issue" of a person means descendant as defined in Subsection (9).

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(26) "Joint tenants with the right of survivorship" and "community property with theright of survivorship" includes coowners of property held under circumstances that entitle one ormore to the whole of the property on the death of the other or others, but excludes forms ofcoownership registration in which the underlying ownership of each party is in proportion to thatparty's contribution.
(27) "Lease" includes an oil, gas, or other mineral lease.
(28) "Letters" includes letters testamentary, letters of guardianship, letters ofadministration, and letters of conservatorship.
(29) "Minor" means a person who is under 18 years of age.
(30) "Mortgage" means any conveyance, agreement, or arrangement in which property isused as security.
(31) "Nonresident decedent" means a decedent who was domiciled in anotherjurisdiction at the time of his death.
(32) "Organization" includes a corporation, limited liability company, business trust,estate, trust, partnership, joint venture, association, government or governmental subdivision oragency, or any other legal or commercial entity.
(33) "Parent" includes any person entitled to take, or who would be entitled to take if thechild died without a will, as a parent under this code by intestate succession from the child whoserelationship is in question and excludes any person who is only a stepparent, foster parent, orgrandparent.
(34) "Payor" means a trustee, insurer, business entity, employer, government,governmental agency or subdivision, or any other person authorized or obligated by law or agoverning instrument to make payments.
(35) "Person" means an individual or an organization.
(36) (a) "Personal representative" includes executor, administrator, successor personalrepresentative, special administrator, and persons who perform substantially the same functionunder the law governing their status.
(b) "General personal representative" excludes special administrator.
(37) "Petition" means a written request to the court for an order after notice.
(38) "Proceeding" includes action at law and suit in equity.
(39) "Property" includes both real and personal property or any interest therein andmeans anything that may be the subject of ownership.
(40) "Protected person" means a person for whom a conservator has been appointed. A"minor protected person" means a minor for whom a conservator has been appointed because ofminority.
(41) "Protective proceeding" means a proceeding described in Section 75-5-401.
(42) "Record" means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or that is storedin an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable form.
(43) "Registrar" refers to the official of the court designated to perform the functions ofregistrar as provided in Section 75-1-307.
(44) "Security" includes any note, stock, treasury stock, bond, debenture, evidence ofindebtedness, certificate of interest, or participation in an oil, gas, or mining title or lease or inpayments out of production under such a title or lease, collateral trust certificate, transferableshare, voting trust certificate, and, in general, any interest or instrument commonly known as asecurity, 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 theforegoing.
(45) "Settlement," in reference to a decedent's estate, includes the full process ofadministration, distribution, and closing.
(46) "Sign" means, with present intent to authenticate or adopt a record other than a will:
(a) to execute or adopt a tangible symbol; or
(b) to attach to or logically associate with the record an electronic symbol, sound, orprocess.
(47) "Special administrator" means a personal representative as described in Sections75-3-614 through 75-3-618.
(48) "State" means a state of the United States, the District of Columbia, theCommonwealth of Puerto Rico, any territory or insular possession subject to the jurisdiction ofthe United States, or a Native American tribe or band recognized by federal law or formallyacknowledged by a state.
(49) "Successor personal representative" means a personal representative, other than aspecial administrator, who is appointed to succeed a previously appointed personalrepresentative.
(50) "Successors" means persons, other than creditors, who are entitled to property of adecedent under the decedent's will or this title.
(51) "Supervised administration" refers to the proceedings described in Title 75, Chapter3, Part 5, Supervised Administration.
(52) "Survive," except for purposes of Part 3 of Article VI, Uniform TOD SecurityRegistration Act, means that an individual has neither predeceased an event, including the deathof another individual, nor is considered to have predeceased an event under Section 75-2-104 or75-2-702. The term includes its derivatives, such as "survives," "survived," "survivor," and"surviving."
(53) "Testacy proceeding" means a proceeding to establish a will or determine intestacy.
(54) "Testator" includes an individual of either sex.
(55) "Trust" includes a health savings account, as defined in Section 223, InternalRevenue Code, any express trust, private or charitable, with additions thereto, wherever andhowever created. The term also includes a trust created or determined by judgment or decreeunder which the trust is to be administered in the manner of an express trust. The term excludesother constructive trusts, and it excludes resulting trusts, conservatorships, personalrepresentatives, trust accounts as defined in Title 75, Chapter 6, Nonprobate Transfers, custodialarrangements pursuant to any Uniform Transfers To Minors Act, business trusts providing forcertificates to be issued to beneficiaries, common trust funds, voting trusts, preneed funeral plansunder Title 58, Chapter 9, Funeral Services Licensing Act, security arrangements, liquidationtrusts, and trusts for the primary purpose of paying debts, dividends, interest, salaries, wages,profits, pensions, or employee benefits of any kind, and any arrangement under which a person isnominee or escrowee for another.
(56) "Trustee" includes an original, additional, and successor trustee, and cotrustee,whether or not appointed or confirmed by the court.
(57) "Ward" means a person for whom a guardian has been appointed. A "minor ward"is a minor for whom a guardian has been appointed solely because of minority.
(58) "Will" includes codicil and any testamentary instrument which merely appoints an

executor, revokes or revises another will, nominates a guardian, or expressly excludes or limitsthe right of an individual or class to succeed to property of the decedent passing by intestatesuccession.

Amended by Chapter 93, 2010 General Session