If you’ve never come across the term per stirpes, you can probably ignore this post.  However, several people have asked me in the past couple of weeks what it means, so I thought I’d provide an explanation here, in English.  The Latin per stirpes is sometimes called right of representation distribution, and it is used in estate planning documents to describe how estate distributions are allocated if an estate beneficiary predeceases (dies before) the deceased person for whom the estate is being distributed.

The following simple example should illustrate the point.  John has two children, George and Tom, each of whom also has two children of his own.  George and Mary are the only beneficiaries named in John’s will, and John wishes each of them to receive half of John’s estate.  In an unfortunate accident, George dies before John.  Under per stirpes distribution, when John dies 50% of his estate will be distributed to Mary, and 50% will be distributed to George’s two children.

That’s it.  Don’t let the Latin complicate things.  Of course, knowing what it means and applying it are not the same thing.  It’s usually a good idea to talk to your estate planning attorney or advisor for all planning purposes.