deadhand control (2024)

FAQs

What is the dead hand principle? ›

Dead hand control is a tactic used in Estate Planning that allows the owner of an estate to control property and beneficiaries even after death. Essentially, it's a way to put in place stipulations or conditions that a beneficiary must abide by in order to receive his or her inheritance.

Deadhand control refers to individuals controlling how their property will be used after their death through different mechanisms. Historically, deadhand control has been criticized and limited as wealthy individuals attempted to make their wealth carry on for many generations.

A quick definition of unborn-widow rule:

It assumes that a beneficiary's future wife is not yet born at the time of the testator's death. This means that any life estate given to the future wife would void any remainders because the interest would not vest within the perpetuities period.

The rule against perpetuities stipulates that a will, estate plan or other legal document intending to transfer property ownership more than twenty-one years after the death of the primary recipient is void.

The Dead Hand (or "Perimeter") system built by the Soviet Union during the Cold War has been called a "doomsday machine" due to its fail-deadly design and nuclear capabilities.

doomsday machine

… automated system, known as the Dead Hand, was allegedly designed to launch nuclear missiles at U.S. targets if it detected a nuclear attack on Moscow and if communications links with top military commanders were cut (indicating that the commanders had been killed).

Mortmain is a French term meaning “dead hand” which is used in reference to inalienable land or tenements held by the “dead hand” of a church or corporate entity. Alienation of land to a corporation in mortmain, which would render it inalienable as corporations do not die, historically used to be called amortization.

dead hand • \DED-HAND\ • noun. 1 : an inalienable possession of property by a church or corporation 2 : the oppressive influence of the past.

Widowed. If your spouse has died, and you haven't remarried, then you're considered unmarried. It might seem odd, and you might still consider yourself as married. However, in the eyes of the law, your marriage ended when your spouse died.

Widow inheritance (also known as bride inheritance) is a cultural and social practice whereby a widow is required to marry a male relative of her late husband, often his brother. The practice is more commonly referred as a levirate marriage, examples of which can be found in ancient and biblical times.

What is the fertile octogenarian rule? ›

The fertile-octogenarian rule means that if a person having a child would break the rule against perpetuities, the person will be considered capable of having a child no matter their age or physical condition.

The 4% rule says people should withdraw 4% of their retirement funds in the first year after retiring and take that dollar amount, adjusted for inflation, every year after. The rule seeks to establish a steady and safe income stream that will meet a retiree's current and future financial needs.

The word 'perpetuity' means indefinite period. The rule against perpetuity, also known as the rule against remoteness of vesting, means that a property cannot be transferred in such a manner that it becomes inalienable for an indefinite period. This disposition would be a transfer in perpetuity.

Doctrine of worthier title is a doctrine in real estate law which creates a presumption that when a grantor conveys a future interest to their own heirs, the grantor actually intended to keep the interest in themselves.

dead hand • \DED-HAND\ • noun. 1 : an inalienable possession of property by a church or corporation 2 : the oppressive influence of the past.

'"Perimeter" System', with the GRAU Index 15E601, Cyrillic: 15Э601), is a Cold War–era automatic nuclear weapons control system (similar in concept to the American AN/DRC-8 Emergency Rocket Communications System) that was constructed by the Soviet Union. The system remains in use in the post-Soviet Russian Federation.