- haereditas jacens
- /haredataes jeysanz/ In civil law, a prostrate or vacant inheritance. The inheritance left to a voluntary heir was so called so long as he had not manifested, either expressly or by silence, his acceptance or refusal of the inheritance. So long as no one had acquired the inheritance, it was termed "haereditas jacens"; and this, by a legal fiction, represented the person of the decedent. The estate of a person deceased, where the owner left no heirs or legatee to take it, called also "caduca"; an escheated estate. The term has also been used in English law to signify an estate in abeyance; that is, after the ancestor's death, and before assumption of heir. An inheritance without legal owner, and therefore open to the first occupant
Black's law dictionary. HENRY CAMPBELL BLACK, M. A.. 1990.