Legal Term: DEVISE

Definition: A devise is a disposition of real property by a persons last will and testament, to tale effect after the testators death. 2. Its form is immaterial, provided the instrument is to take effect after the death of the party, and a paper in the form of an indenture, which is to have that effect, is considered as a devise. Finch. 195 6 Watts, 522, 3 Rawle, 15, 4 Desaus. 617, 313, 1 Mod. 117, 1 Black. R. 345. 3. The term devise, properly and technically, applies only to real estate the object of the devise must therefore be that kind of property. 1 Hill. Ab. ch. 36, n. 62 to 74. Devise is also sometimes improperly applied to a bequest or legacy. (q. v.) Vide 2 Bouv. Inst. n. 2095, et seq, 4 Kent, Com. 489 8 Vin. Ab. 41 Com. Dig. Estates by Devise. 4. In the Year Book, 9 H. VI. 24, b. A. D. 1430, Babington says, the nature of a devise, when lands are devisable, is, that one can devise that his lands shall be sold by executors and this is good. And a devise in such form has always been in use. And so a man may have frank tenement of him who had nothing, in the same manner as one may have fire from a flint, and yet there is no fire in the flint. But it is to perform the last will of the devisor.

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