Subject to additional definitions contained in
this article 10 and the subsequent articles that are applicable to specific articles,
parts, or sections, and unless the context otherwise requires, in this code:
(1) Agent means an attorney in fact under a durable or nondurable power of
attorney, an individual authorized to make decisions concerning another's health
care, and an individual authorized to make decisions for another under the
Colorado Patient Autonomy Act.
(2) Application means a written request to the registrar for an order of
informal probate or appointment under part 3 of article 12 of this title.
(3) Augmented estate means the estate described in sections 15-11-203,
15-11-204, 15-11-205, 15-11-206, 15-11-207, and 15-11-208.
(4) Authenticated means certified, when used in reference to copies of
official documents, and only certification by the official having custody is required.
(5) Beneficiary, as it relates to a trust beneficiary, includes a person who
has any present or future interest, vested or contingent, and also includes the
owner of an interest by assignment or other transfer; as it relates to a charitable
trust, includes any person entitled to enforce the trust; as it relates to a
beneficiary of a beneficiary designation, includes a beneficiary of an insurance or
annuity policy, of an account with payment on death (POD) designation, of a
security registered in beneficiary form (TOD), or of a pension, profit sharing,
retirement, or similar benefit plan, or other nonprobate transfer at death; and, as it
relates to a beneficiary designated in a governing instrument, includes a grantee
of a deed, a devisee, a trust beneficiary, a beneficiary of a beneficiary designation, a
donee, appointee, or taker in default of a power of appointment, and a person in
whose favor a power of attorney or a power held in any individual, fiduciary, or
representative capacity is exercised.
(6) Beneficiary designation means a governing instrument naming a
beneficiary of an insurance or annuity policy, of an account with POD designation,
of a security registered in the beneficiary form (TOD), or of a pension, profit sharing,
retirement, or similar benefit plan, or other nonprobate transfer at death.
(6.5) Business trust includes, but is not limited to, Massachusetts business
trusts created for business or investment purposes; Delaware statutory trusts;
Illinois land trusts; mutual fund trusts; common trust funds; voting trusts;
liquidation trusts; real estate investment trusts; environmental remediation trusts;
trusts for the primary purpose of paying debts, dividends, interest, salaries, wages,
compensation, annuities, profits, pensions, or employee benefits of any kind; and
other trusts with purposes that are the same or similar to any of the trusts
enumerated in this subsection (6.5), regardless of whether such other trusts are
created under statutory or common law, and regardless of whether the beneficial
interests in such other trusts are evidenced by certificates.
(7) Child includes an individual entitled to take as a child under this code
by intestate succession from the parent whose relationship is involved and
excludes a person who is only a stepchild, a foster child, a grandchild, or any more
remote descendant.
(8) Claims, in respect to the estates of decedents and protected persons,
includes liabilities of the decedent or protected person whether arising in contract,
in tort, or otherwise, and liabilities of the estate which arise at or after the death of
the decedent or after the appointment of a conservator, including funeral expenses
and expenses of administration. The term does not include estate or inheritance
taxes, or taxes due the state of Colorado, or demands or disputes regarding title of
a decedent or protected person to specific assets alleged to be included in the
estate.
(9) Conservator means a person who is appointed by a court to manage the
estate of a protected person.
(10) Court means the court or division thereof having jurisdiction in matters
relating to the affairs of decedents and protected persons. This court is the district
court, except in the city and county of Denver where it is the probate court.
(11) Descendant means all of the individual's lineal descendants of all
generations, with the relationship of parent and child at each generation being
determined by the definitions of child and parent contained in this code.
(12) Devise, when used as a noun, means a testamentary disposition of real
or personal property and, when used as a verb, means to dispose of real or personal
property by will.
(13) Devisee means a person designated in a will to receive a devise. For
the purposes of article 12 of this title, in the case of a devise to an existing trust or
trustee, or to a trustee in trust described by will, the trust or trustee is the devisee
and the beneficiaries are not devisees.
(14) Disability means cause for a protective order as described in section
15-14-401.
(15) Distributee means any person who has received property of a
decedent from his or her personal representative other than as a creditor or
purchaser. A testamentary trustee is a distributee only to the extent of distributed
assets or increment thereto remaining in his or her hands. A beneficiary of a
testamentary trust to whom the trustee has distributed property received from a
personal representative is a distributee of the personal representative. For the
purposes of this provision, testamentary trustee includes a trustee to whom
assets are transferred by will, to the extent of the devised assets.
(16) Divorce includes a dissolution of marriage, and annulment includes a
declaration of invalidity, as such terms are used in the Uniform Dissolution of
Marriage Act, article 10 of title 14, C.R.S.
(16.5) Domiciliary foreign personal representative means a personal
representative appointed by another jurisdiction in which the decedent was
domiciled at the time of the decedent's death.
(16.7) Donee, as used in the context of powers of appointment, has the
same meaning as powerholder as set forth in section 15-2.5-102 (13).
(17) Estate means the property of the decedent, trust, or other person
whose affairs are subject to this code as originally constituted and as it exists from
time to time during administration.
(18) Exempt property means that property of a decedent's estate which is
described in section 15-11-403.
(19) Fiduciary includes a personal representative, guardian, conservator,
and trustee.
(20) Foreign personal representative means a personal representative
appointed by another jurisdiction.
(21) Formal proceedings means proceedings conducted before a judge
with notice to interested persons.
(22) Governing instrument means a deed, will, trust, insurance or annuity
policy, multiple-party account, security registered in beneficiary form (TOD),
pension, profit sharing, retirement or similar benefit plan, instrument creating or
exercising a power of appointment or power of attorney, or a donative, appointive,
or nominative instrument of any other type.
(23) Guardian means a person who has qualified as a guardian of a minor or
incapacitated person pursuant to testamentary or court appointment, but excludes
one who is merely a guardian ad litem.
(24) Heirs, except as controlled by section 15-11-711, means persons,
including the surviving spouse, who are entitled under the statutes of intestate
succession to the property of a decedent.
(25) Incapacitated person means an individual described in section 15-14-102 (5).
(26) Informal proceedings means those conducted without notice to
interested persons by an officer of the court acting as a registrar for probate of a
will, appointment of a personal representative, or determination of a guardian under
sections 15-14-202 and 15-14-301.
(27) Interested person includes heirs, devisees, children, spouses,
creditors, beneficiaries, trust directors, and any others having a property right in or
claim against a trust estate or the estate of a decedent, ward, or protected person,
which may be affected by the proceeding. It also includes persons having priority
for an appointment as a personal representative and other fiduciaries representing
the interested person. The meaning as it relates to particular persons may vary
from time to time and is determined according to the particular purposes of, and
matter involved in, any proceeding.
(28) Issue of a person means descendant as defined in subsection (11) of
this section.
(29) Joint tenants with right of survivorship and community property with
the right of survivorship for the purposes of this code only includes co-owners of
property held under circumstances that entitle one or more to the whole of the
property on the death of the other or others, but excludes forms of co-ownership
registration in which the underlying ownership of each party is in proportion to that
party's contribution.
(30) Lease includes an oil, gas, or other mineral lease.
(31) Letters includes letters testamentary, letters of guardianship, letters
of administration, and letters of conservatorship.
(32) Minor means a person who is under eighteen years of age.
(33) Mortgage means any conveyance, agreement, or arrangement in
which the property is used as security.
(34) Nonresident decedent means a decedent who was domiciled in
another jurisdiction at the time of his or her death.
(35) Organization means a corporation, business trust, estate, trust,
partnership, joint venture, limited liability company, association, government or
governmental subdivision or agency, or any other legal or commercial entity.
(36) Parent includes any person entitled to take, or who would be entitled
to take if the child died without a will, as a parent under this code by intestate
succession from the child whose relationship is in question and excludes any
person who is only a stepparent, foster parent, or grandparent.
(37) Payer means a trustee, insurer, business entity, employer,
government, governmental agency or subdivision, or any other person authorized or
obligated by law or a governing instrument to make payments.
(38) Person means an individual or an organization.
(39) Personal representative includes executor, administrator, successor
personal representative, special administrator, and persons who perform
substantially the same function under the law governing their status. General
personal representative excludes special administrator.
(40) Petition means a written request to the court for an order after notice.
(41) Proceeding includes action at law and suit in equity.
(42) Property means both real and personal property or any interest
therein and anything that may be the subject of ownership.
(43) Protected person has the same meaning as set forth in section 15-14-102 (11).
(44) Protective proceeding has the same meaning as used in section 15-14-401.
(44.5) Record means information that is inscribed on a tangible medium or
that is stored in an electronic or other medium and is retrievable in perceivable
form.
(45) Registrar refers to the official of the court designated to perform the
functions of registrar as provided in section 15-10-307.
(46) Security includes any note; stock; treasury stock; bond; debenture;
evidence of indebtedness; certificate of interest or participation in an oil, gas, or
mining title or lease or in payments out of production under such a title or lease;
collateral trust certificate; transferable share; voting trust certificate; or, in general,
any interest or instrument commonly known as security; any certificate of interest
or participation; any temporary or interim certificate, receipt, or certificate of
deposit for, or any warrant or right to subscribe to or purchase, any of the items
enumerated in this subsection (46).
(47) Settlement, in reference to a decedent's estate, means the full
process of administration, distribution, and closing.
(47.5) Sign means, with present intent to authenticate or adopt a record
other than a will:
(a) To execute or adopt a tangible symbol; or
(b) To attach to or logically associate with the record an electronic symbol,
sound, or process.
(48) Special administrator means a personal representative as described
by sections 15-12-614 to 15-12-618.
(49) State means any state of the United States, the District of Columbia,
the commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and any territory or insular possession subject to
the jurisdiction of the United States.
(50) Successor personal representative means a personal representative,
other than a special administrator, who is appointed to succeed a previously
appointed personal representative.
(51) Successors means persons other than creditors, who are entitled to
property of a decedent under his or her will or this code.
(52) Supervised administration means the proceedings described in part 5
of article 12 of this title.
(53) Survive means that an individual has neither predeceased an event,
including the death of another individual, nor is deemed to have predeceased an
event under section 15-11-104, 15-11-702, or 15-11-712. The term includes its
derivatives, such as survives, survived, survivor, and surviving.
(54) Testacy proceeding means a proceeding to establish a will or
determine intestacy.
(55) Testator includes an individual of either sex.
(56) (a) Except as provided in paragraph (b) of this subsection (56):
(I) Trust includes an express trust, private or charitable, with additions
thereto, wherever and however created and any amendments to such trusts.
(II) Trust also includes a trust created or determined by judgment or
decree under which the trust is to be administered in the manner of an express
trust.
(b) (I) Trust excludes constructive trusts unless a court, in determining
such a trust, provides that the trust is to be administered as an express trust.
(II) Trust also excludes resulting trusts; conservatorships; personal
representatives; accounts as defined in section 15-15-201 (1); custodial
arrangements pursuant to the Colorado Uniform Transfers to Minors Act, article
50 of title 11, C.R.S.; security arrangements; business trusts, as defined in
subsection (6.5) of this section; and any arrangement under which a person is
nominee or escrowee for another.
(57) Trustee includes an original, additional, or successor trustee, whether
or not appointed or confirmed by court.
(58) Ward means an individual described in section 15-14-102 (15).
(59) Will includes any codicil and any testamentary instrument that merely
appoints an executor, revokes or revises another will, nominates a guardian, or
expressly excludes or limits the right of an individual or class to succeed to
property of the decedent passing by intestate succession. Will does not include a
designated beneficiary agreement that is executed pursuant to article 22 of this
title.