The testator is the person making the will, and a will is written in a vocabulary that lawyers stopped noticing a century ago, and families meet it at the worst time. Each term below has a settled meaning, and where the meaning comes from an Act or from GOV.UK the source is given; where it is common law, the page says so. Nothing here changes what a particular will means, which is a question for whoever administers it.
Codicil
GOV.UK says you cannot amend your will after it has been signed and witnessed, that the only way to change it is by making an official alteration called a codicil, and that a codicil must be signed and witnessed in the same way as a will (GOV.UK, Making a will: update your will, checked 1 November 2026).
It adds that there is no limit on how many codicils you can add, but that for major changes you should make a new will.
A codicil is kept with the will and read with it. GOV.UK says an executor can apply for probate if named in the will or in a codicil (GOV.UK, Applying for probate: if there’s a will, checked 1 November 2026), so a codicil that changes the executor works. Our wills hub covers the signing rules both documents share.
Executor, administrator and trustee
GOV.UK’s definition is functional: the executor is who is going to sort out your estate and carry out your wishes after your death (GOV.UK, Making a will: write your will, checked 1 November 2026). Where there is no will the person who does the job is the administrator, chosen by the probate rules rather than the deceased, on our dying without a will page.
A trustee holds property for someone else under the will’s terms, for a child under 18 or a spouse with a life interest. The same person is often named as executor and trustee, and the two roles start and end at different times: the executor’s ends when the estate is distributed, the trustee’s when the trust does. Our probate hub covers the executor’s duties.
Residue, and the kinds of gift
The residue, or residuary estate, is what remains after the debts, the funeral, the costs of administration, any Inheritance Tax and the other gifts have been paid. The Act uses the term throughout the intestacy rules (Administration of Estates Act 1925, section 46, checked 1 November 2026).
HMRC’s manual says a home can be inherited as part of the residue of the estate (HMRC Inheritance Tax Manual, IHTM46033, checked 1 November 2026).
The other gifts have names, and the definitions below are the ordinary legal ones rather than a GOV.UK quotation. A specific gift is a named thing: my car, my house. A pecuniary gift is a sum of money. A residuary gift is a share of whatever is left, and it is the residuary beneficiaries who bear the risk if the estate is smaller than expected, because the specific and pecuniary gifts are paid first.
Personal chattels
The Act defines personal chattels as tangible movable property, other than money or securities for money, property used at the death solely or mainly for business purposes, or property held at the death solely as an investment (Administration of Estates Act 1925, section 55, checked 1 November 2026).
The definition matters twice. Under the intestacy rules the spouse takes the chattels before the £322,000 (Administration of Estates Act 1925 (Fixed Net Sum) Order 2023, checked 1 November 2026), and in a will a gift of my personal chattels carries the statutory meaning unless the will defines its own. A wine collection held as an investment is out; the same bottles kept to drink are in.
Life interest, and a right of occupation
GOV.UK describes an interest in possession trust as one where the trustee must pass on all the trust income to the beneficiary as it arises. Its example is shares whose income goes to your wife for the rest of her life, with the shares passing to your children when she dies (GOV.UK, Trusts and taxes: types of trust, checked 1 November 2026).
A right of occupation is the same idea for a house: GOV.UK’s Inheritance Tax guidance describes a person given a right to live in the family home following the death of their spouse, with the home held in trust for their lifetime (GOV.UK, Trusts and Inheritance Tax, checked 1 November 2026). The person with the life interest is the life tenant; those who take afterwards are the remaindermen. Our blended families page is built on this clause.
Issue, per stirpes, and section 33
Issue means children and their descendants, without limit. Per stirpes, by the branch, means that a share due to a child who has died is divided among that child’s own children rather than added to the surviving children’s shares. Neither term is defined on GOV.UK; both are ordinary usage in wills.
The Act supplies the default. It says that where a will contains a gift to a child or remoter descendant of the testator, and that beneficiary dies before the testator leaving issue who are living at the testator’s death, then unless a contrary intention appears the gift takes effect as a gift to that issue (Wills Act 1837, section 33, checked 1 November 2026). A gift to a daughter who dies first goes to her children, not into the residue.
Lapse, ademption and survivorship
A gift lapses when the beneficiary dies before the person making the will, and unless section 33 or the will itself provides otherwise, it falls into the residue. Ademption is the sister rule for things rather than people: a specific gift of something the person no longer owned at death has nothing to attach to and fails.
Both are common law and are not defined on GOV.UK.
The reason ademption bites is the Act’s rule on timing: every will is construed, as to the property in it, to speak and take effect as if executed immediately before the death, unless a contrary intention appears (Wills Act 1837, section 24, checked 1 November 2026). A gift of my house at 12 Elm Road, sold before death to pay for care, gives the beneficiary nothing. A survivorship clause is a drafting convention, not a statutory term: it says a beneficiary must outlive the testator by a set period, such as 28 days, before taking, so that two deaths in one accident do not pass the estate through a second set of rules.
A witness who benefits
The Act says that where a person who attests the will, or their husband or wife, is given any gift under it, the gift is utterly null and void so far as it concerns that person, though they are still admitted as a witness to prove the will (Wills Act 1837, section 15, checked 1 November 2026).
The will stands; the gift falls. GOV.UK’s plain version is that you cannot leave your witnesses or their married partners anything in your will (GOV.UK, Making a will: make sure your will is legal, checked 1 November 2026).
Alterations, revocation, and what marriage does
Handwritten changes count for nothing unless signed and witnessed. The Act says no alteration made after execution is valid unless executed in the same manner as the will, with the signatures in the margin or near the alteration (Wills Act 1837, section 21, checked 1 November 2026).
Revocation is the cancelling of a will, by a later will that says so, by destroying it, or by marriage: the Act says a will is revoked by the testator’s marriage (section 18, checked 1 November 2026). Divorce does not revoke it; the Act treats the former spouse as having died on the date the marriage was dissolved or annulled for gifts, executor and trustee appointments and powers of appointment (section 18A, checked 1 November 2026). Our seeing and contesting a will page covers what happens when the words are disputed.