Phrasal verbs: to pay over (wills and testaments)

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Hello and welcome to another edition of 2-minute English, here at Better at English dot com. This post is in response to an email question from E.G. (who I think comes from Greece).

I have a question about a phrasal verb that I read in a will. What exactly does

pay over mean and what does survivorshipmean?

Thanks very much for your question, E. Unfortunately, to give you a really great answer I would need to have a lot more context. And because I am not a lawyer, you should probably take what I say with a very large grain of salt. Legal documents use language in very special ways, and it's easy to be misled if you apply everyday English knowledge to legal texts. So with that disclaimer out of the way, here is what my research has turned up for to pay over (I'll cover survivorship separately).

Put very simply, from what I can tell “to pay over” just means to pay. To transfer money from one person (or entity) to another. In the context of a will or testament, it means that whoever has the deceased's money or property would transfer ownership of it to the person it was bequeathed to in the will. For example, if I had left 1000 dollars to you in my will, and then I died, then whoever had the money (probably my bank) would “pay it over” to you once all of the complicated legal processes were finished.

Here are some (very scary) example legalese sentences using “to pay over” in the context of wills and testaments. I warn you, these sentences are not for the faint of heart, so you might want to go to the website and actually read the transcript because it will be a lot for you to process aurally.

If such child shall have then attained the age of 30 years, my trustees shall transfer, pay over and deliver to such child outright the following amount: link

Nevertheless I empower by trustees to advance and pay over to my said sons any part not exceeding one half of the amounts ordered to be retained for their own respective absolute use and benefit if my trustees shall deem it to be for their advantage and expedient so to do link

Oh man, that was a mouthful.

And I hereby direct my executors, the survivors or survivor of them, within six months after my decease, to pay over the sum of two thousand pounds sterling to such persons as shall be duly appointed by the Selectmen of Boston and the corporation of Philadelphia, to receive and take charge of their respective sums, of one thousand pounds each, for the purposes aforesaid. link

Heavy sigh. That last one actually made my brain hurt.

I'm definitely not a legal expert, so those of you with more expertise in this area are welcome to help me out on this one if I've gone astray. Part of being a responsible teacher is being able to admit it when you don't have all the answers!

Thanks for tuning in to this edition of 2-minute English. And thanks to everyone who's sent questions and feedback about the site over the past few days. I'll be recording a bunch of new podcasts for you all this weekend, taking your feedback and questions into account. Maybe by then I'll be over this darn cold that I caught on my trip to Mexico…

As always, the full transcript of this podcast is available at our website, Better at English dot com.