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SETTLEMENT Definition & Legal Meaning

Definition & Citations:

In conveyancing. A disposition of property by deed, usually through the medium of a trustee, by which its enjoyment is limited to several persons in succession, as a wife, children, or other relatives. In contracts. Adjustment or liquidation of mutual accounts ; the act by which parties who have been dealing together arrange their accounts and strike a balance. Also full and final payment or discharge of an account. In poor laws. The term signifies a right acquired by a person, by continued residence for a given length of time in a town or district, to claim aid or relief under the poor- laws in case of his becoming a pauper. See Westfield v. Coventry, 71 Vt. 175, 44 Atl. 60; Jefferson v. Washington, 10 Me. 300; Jackson County v. Hillsdale County, 124 Mich. 17, 83 N. W. 408. In probate practice. The settlement of an estate consists in its administration by the executor or administrator carried so far that all debts and legacies have been paid and the individual shares of distributees in the corpus of the estate, or the residuary portion, as the case may be, definitely ascertained and determined, and accounts tiled and passed, so that nothing remains but to make final distribution. See Calkins v. Smith, 41 Mich. 400, 1 N. W. 1048; Forbes v. Harrington, 171 Mass. 386, 50 N. E. 641; Appeal of Mathews, 72 Conn. 555, 45 Atl. 170.

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