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Estate / Estate Planning
An estate is usually the assets and liabilities left behind when a person passes on. This can consist of personal property, real property, investments, bank accounts, intellectual property, jewelry and hard currency, business interests, copyrights, mineral, timber and/or water rights, livestock, and anything else of value. It also includes any debts and/or judgments unpaid at the time of death.
An estate can - and often does - live long after the death of the principal (the person who owned or controlled the assets). An estate can be maintained for the benefit of heirs, but this is not necessarily the case. Songwriter-composer Cole Porter died in 1964, yet his songs continue to generate huge royalties. Since Cole Porter and his wife Linda had no children - and thus no descendants - and Porter himself was an only child, virtually all of these royalties are paid to his estate (and the executors are making a very nice living). On the other hand, Harry Warren - another composer-songwriter who was a contemporary of Porter - had several children who have since produced two additional generations of descendants. These descendants continue to collect payments on songs such as I Only Have Eyes For You and Chattanooga Choo Choo, royalties for which are paid into and disbursed from the Warren estate.
An estate is also a legal entity, like a corporation. As such, it may be held liable and sued for damages in the same manner as an individual, group or other business entity. For example, if a plaintiff suffered an injury as the result of his employment with a company that was privately held by a single individual, and that individual later sold the company before passing on, the plaintiff would bring suit against the estate.
Estate can also refer to a piece of real property (as in real estate), particularly if it is affected by an easement, meaning that someone or some entity has the legal right to do something or prevent something from being done on the property in question. A common example is a right-of-way; a public utility may have the right to place power poles on a person's private real property.