## Facts

- Hildreth M. Kinert died July 22, 1990, leaving a will addressing her residence at 308 North Progress Avenue, Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.
- Two foster sons, James B. Quade and James R. Lawley, lived in the home at Kinert’s death and continued living there afterward.
- The will granted the foster sons the right to continue to reside in the home and to use its furniture and household articles for their natural lives (or life of the survivor), or until both vacated the premises for 60 days.
- The right was conditioned on the foster sons paying property taxes and fire insurance and keeping the real and personal property in the same general state of repair as at Kinert’s death; failure to comply terminated the interest.
- Upon termination (including a 60-day vacancy or the survivor’s death), the will directed liquidation of the real estate and personal property, with net proceeds passing to First Assembly of God Church of Harrisburg.
- In a 1995 first and final accounting, the executor treated the foster sons’ interest as a non-taxable license to occupy with no assigned value for Pennsylvania inheritance tax purposes.
- The Pennsylvania Department of Revenue objected, asserting the will created a taxable life estate with an ascertainable value.
- The Orphans’ Court held the foster sons received only a license to occupy and confirmed the account; the Department appealed.

## Issues

1. Whether the will’s grant of a right to reside in the decedent’s home, conditioned on continued occupancy and specified obligations, created a legal life estate or merely a personal license to occupy.
2. If the interest was a license, whether it nonetheless had an ascertainable value subject to Pennsylvania inheritance tax.

## Decision

- The Commonwealth Court affirmed the Orphans’ Court.
- The foster sons’ interest was a license to occupy, not a legal life estate in real property.
- The license interest lacked an ascertainable value for inheritance tax purposes and was not taxable as a life estate.

## Legal Principles

- In construing a will, the testator’s intent governs and is determined from the will as a whole.
- Descriptive labels in a will (including “life estate” terminology) are not controlling; courts examine the actual rights granted and their limits.
- A grant tied to personal occupancy, lacking customary incidents of a freehold (such as transferability), and terminable upon non-occupancy or other conditions may be treated as a license rather than a life estate.
- A personal, conditional occupancy right that is terminable on contingencies beyond death may be too indefinite for standard actuarial valuation and may lack an ascertainable value for inheritance tax purposes.

## Conclusion

The court held that a will provision granting foster sons a conditional, occupancy-based right to live in the decedent’s home created a personal license to occupy, not a life estate, and that the interest could not be assigned an ascertainable value for Pennsylvania inheritance tax.


In re Estate of Kinert v. Pa. Dep’t of Revenue, 693 A.2d 643 (Pa. Commw. Ct. 1997)