What it means
A short but consequential rule: the death of the testator is the event that vests a devise. The moment the testator dies, the beneficiary's right to the gift is fixed — probate only confirms it.
The one exception is when the will itself requires some other event before the gift vests, such as a survivorship condition ('to my son if he survives me by 30 days'). Absent that kind of language, a beneficiary who is alive at the death owns the gift, even if they die during the administration — in which case it passes on through their own estate.
- A devise vests at the testator's death by default.
- The will can require another event first — most often a survivorship condition.
- A beneficiary alive at the death owns the gift, even if the estate hasn't distributed yet.
- If that beneficiary then dies, the vested gift passes through their own estate.
How it plays out
Vesting decides who inherits when a beneficiary outlives the decedent but dies before distribution. Because §732.514 vests the gift at death, that beneficiary's share doesn't go back to the estate — it flows into their own estate and out to their heirs, sometimes to people the original testator never intended. It's exactly why we build survivorship conditions into wills and trusts: a '30-day survival' clause changes the vesting event and keeps a gift from detouring through a beneficiary who barely outlived the decedent.
Where this shows up
Pages on this site where § 732.514 does real work:
Questions people ask
