Legal Definitions - personal estate

The term personal estate refers to all property owned by an individual that is not real estate. Essentially, it encompasses everything a person owns except for land and anything permanently attached to land (like buildings, fences, or in-ground fixtures).

This category includes a wide variety of assets, both tangible and intangible:

• Tangible personal property: Physical items you can touch, such as vehicles, furniture, jewelry, clothing, artwork, cash, and household goods.
• Intangible personal property: Assets that do not have a physical form but represent value, such as bank accounts, stocks, bonds, intellectual property (like copyrights or patents), and business interests.

Here are some examples to illustrate the concept of personal estate:

• Example 1: Estate Planning and Inheritance

  When an individual passes away, their will often specifies how their "personal estate" should be distributed among their heirs. This might include their valuable collection of vintage watches, their investment portfolio containing shares in various companies, the funds held in their checking and savings accounts, and their extensive library of first-edition books. These items are all considered part of their personal estate because they are movable or intangible assets, distinct from any real estate (like a house or land) the person might have owned.

• Example 2: Business Assets

  A small business owner might use their company's "personal estate" as collateral to secure a loan. This could involve pledging the business's inventory of products, its accounts receivable (money owed to the business by customers), and the company's fleet of delivery vehicles. In this context, the inventory, accounts receivable, and vehicles are all movable or intangible assets that are not real estate, thus falling under the definition of personal estate.

• Example 3: Insurance Claims

  After a fire damages their home, an individual files an insurance claim for the loss of their "personal estate." The claim would cover items such as their furniture, clothing, electronics, and a valuable family heirloom painting. The damage to the house structure itself (walls, roof, foundation) would be covered under a separate part of the policy related to real property, but the items *inside* the house are part of their personal estate because they are movable possessions.