legal-terms
Inheritance or gift
<p>I got some stock from my family last year.
Do I call this as an inheritance from my family? Or a gift from my family?</p>

<p>Another way to ask this is:
Does inheritance always happen posthumously?</p>

<h1>Short Answer</h1>
<p><strong>Inheritance</strong> usually refers only to a post-humous transfer, but that usage isn't absolute. There are circumstances when people will use the word in an extremely broad sense that also includes large transfers received during the donor's life in lieu of a true <strong>inheritance</strong> received at death, and it isn't completely incorrect to do so.</p>
<p>For example, if the stock made up 90% or 100% ownership in a family business, often this might be called an <strong>inheritance</strong> even if it was received while the donors were alive.</p>
<p>Still, if you received the stock while the donors were alive, the preferred term would be to call it a <strong>gift</strong> (even though a <strong>gift</strong> can include gifts made during life and gifts made upon death).</p>
<h1>Long Answer</h1>
<p>If you receive something because someone died and their will says that you should receive it, the proper legal term for this is a <strong>devise</strong>. You are a <strong>devisee</strong>. A <strong>devise</strong> and <strong>bequest</strong> and <strong>legacy</strong> are close synonyms. Historically, a gift by will of personal property at death was called a <strong>bequest</strong> or a <strong>legacy</strong>, and a gift by will of real property at death was called a <strong>devise</strong>, but the terms are now often used more or less interchangably.</p>
<p>The original primary meaning of the word <strong>legacy</strong> has become a secondary and technical one in contemporary usage. Now, the term <strong>legacy</strong> is primarily used to refer to the reputation that someone (usually, but not always, someone who has died or at least ceased to participate in a particular field in which they are distinguished) has left behind and is associate with.</p>
<p>If you receive something because someone died and they didn't have a will, the proper legal term for this is an <strong>inheritance</strong> and you are an <strong>heir.</strong> (In civil law jurisdictions not derived from the laws of England where English is spoken, such as Louisiana, there is also the term a <strong>testamentary inheritance</strong> which means a <strong>devise</strong> or <strong>bequest</strong> in the narrow technical senses of those words.)</p>
<p>However, many people (even in legal circumstances) use the term <strong>inheritance</strong> to refer to anything received as a consequence of someone's death even if it was pursuant to something other than <strong>intestate succession</strong> (which is the passing of property at death other than pursuant to a will or a beneficiary designation or joint ownership). And, the term <strong>heir</strong> is likewise sometimes used more generally to refer to anyone receiving an <strong>inheritance</strong> in the broader sense of the word.</p>
<p>The term <strong>heir</strong> also refers to someone who would be entitled to receive an <strong>intestate succession</strong> at the time if someone died, even in the absence of any actual inheritance or death. This narrow sense of the word is also called an <strong>heir at law</strong>. And the term <strong>heir</strong> is also used in a slightly different sense to refer to someone who would receive the property or feudal title of someone if they died, even if this is not pursuant to <strong>intestate succession</strong>. If one wants to distinguish this sense of this paragraph from other senses of the word <strong>heir</strong>, one can say <strong>heir apparent</strong>.</p>
<p>(There are also non-literal senses of the words <strong>inheritance</strong> and <strong>heir</strong> that refer to people who are recipients of intellectual contributions made by someone or some movement. Similarly, there is a technical sense of the word in genetics which means to receive a trait genetically from a parent. More generally, sometimes the semantic focus when one uses the word <strong>inheritance</strong> is on the fact that something is received by someone in a younger generation from an older generation, rather than on the timing of the transfer.)</p>
<p>If you receive property from a trust or a beneficiary designation you are a <strong>transferee</strong> also called a <strong>beneficiary</strong> and the technical terms for this are <strong>non-probate transfer</strong> or <strong>distribution</strong>.</p>
<p>The term <strong>gift</strong> usually refers to a transfer of property during life, but the strict technical meaning of the word <strong>gift</strong> includes both gifts made during life and gifts given as a consequence of a death. The strict technical term for a gift given during life when the context doesn't make the fact that the donor is alive at the time of the gift is a <strong>lifetime gift</strong> or an <strong>inter vivos gift</strong>.</p>
<p>While it is contrary to the technical meaning of the term <strong>inheritance</strong> and also to the broader literal meaning of the term <strong>inheritance</strong>, people sometimes the term <strong>inheritance</strong> very loosely to refer to a large <strong>lifetime gift</strong> made in lieu of an <strong>inheritance</strong> or <strong>devise</strong> or <strong>bequest</strong> at death. But, this usage is not appropriate in technical discussions.</p>
<p>If you received the stock during the life of the donor, it would be more clear and a better usage to say that it was a <strong>gift</strong>, rather than an <strong>inheritance</strong>, even though it would not be unheard of (and not absolutely incorrect) to call a large gift made during life in lieu of a transfer at death an <strong>inheritance</strong> and even though a <strong>gift</strong>, in theory, could be made after death. In this extremely broad, but literal, sense, <strong>inheritance</strong> refers to a substantial, usually one time, intergenerational transfer of wealth.</p>
<p>Also, when one talks about <strong>inherited wealth</strong> one is usually talking about all wealth received from lifetime gifts and gifts made upon death by any means, combined, rather than in the narrow sense of wealth received upon someone's death. Similarly, the word <strong>inheritance</strong> can be used in the sense of all of a person's <strong>inherited wealth</strong> rather than with respect to a particular transfer of property, and in this sense <strong>inheritance</strong> refers to all wealth received from lifetime gifts and gifts made upon death by any means, combined, rather than in the narrow sense of wealth received upon someone's death. Indeed, sometimes <strong>inheritance</strong> is used even more broadly still to refer to everything a person owns (i.e. all of their wealth) without regard to its source, although this usage is usually limited to poetic or religious uses of the word.</p>
<p>(While I don't cite to sources here, I have been an estate planning attorney for twenty years and just yesterday taught a course to attorneys and accountants that spent the first 40 minutes or so defining these terms.)</p>
<p>The <a href="https://en.oxforddictionaries.com/definition/inherit" rel="nofollow noreferrer">origin of the word inherit</a> is as follows:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>Middle English enherite ‘receive as a right’, from Old French
enheriter, from late Latin inhereditare ‘appoint as heir’, from Latin
in- ‘in’ + heres, hered- ‘heir’.</p>
</blockquote>

<p><a href="http://www.dictionary.com/browse/inheritance" rel="nofollow noreferrer">dictionary.com</a> lists the definition of inheritance as:</p>

<blockquote>
  <p>something that is or may be inherited; property passing at <strong>the owner's death</strong> to the heir or those entitled to succeed; legacy. </p>
</blockquote>

<p>So in regards to "Does inheritance happen posthumously?", the answer seems to be yes. </p>
