Definition
"All my property of any nature or kind whatsoever" is a comprehensive residuary or dispositive phrase used in wills and testamentary instruments to convey the entirety of a testator's estate to a named beneficiary or class of beneficiaries. The phrase functions as a term of art in testamentary drafting, signaling an intent to pass every asset the testator owns—real, personal, mixed, tangible, and intangible—without enumeration or exclusion. Courts interpreting this language have consistently treated it as among the broadest possible grants of testamentary disposition.
The phrase typically appears in one of two roles: (1) as a general devise and bequest clause intended to capture the whole estate in a single sweep, or (2) as a residuary clause sweeping in anything not addressed by prior specific bequests. The operative legal question in either context is whether the language is broad enough to include property not specifically described, including after-acquired property, contingent interests, or property held jointly.
Related phrasings treated as legally equivalent or near-equivalent in the historical authorities include:
- "All my property of every description"
- "All my real estate"
- "All my real property"
- "All my real and personal property"
- "Kind whatsoever, which deed, papers, and moveables will show"
Each variant has generated its own body of interpretive case law, and courts have not always treated them as interchangeable.
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Common Confusion
Researchers frequently conflate this phrase with a formal residuary clause. While the two often overlap in effect, they are structurally distinct. A true residuary clause operates after all specific and general bequests are satisfied—it is a catch-all for what remains. "All my property of any nature or kind whatsoever" may instead appear as the primary dispositive clause, passing the entire estate before any specific bequests are addressed. The placement and context within the instrument controls which construction applies. Conflating the two can cause errors when analyzing whether a particular asset was specifically devised or passed under a general sweep.
A second common confusion involves the phrase's scope with respect to real property. Historically, a devise of "all my property" was not always interpreted to include real estate without explicit language, because courts in some jurisdictions required real property to be specifically devised by express reference to land, realty, or comparable terms. The addition of "of any nature or kind whatsoever" was understood by courts and practitioners to cure this gap—but historical case law is uneven on this point, and researchers should not assume uniform treatment across jurisdictions or time periods.
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Why It Matters in Research
This phrase sits at the intersection of testamentary intent, construction doctrine, and estate administration, making it a high-frequency research target in probate and wills litigation materials.
**Trap in historical sources:** The Rapalje & Lawrence entry does not treat "all my property of any nature or kind whatsoever" as a standalone definition but rather as part of a cluster of related testamentary phrases, each keyed to specific case citations. Researchers using that dictionary need to read the full cluster, not just the phrase that superficially matches their search term. The cases cited for neighboring phrases—particularly those construing "all my real estate" and "all my real and personal"—may bear directly on the interpretation of the broader "nature or kind" formulation, since courts frequently drew analogies across these phrasings.
**Jurisdictional variation in historical case law:** The North Carolina, Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, South Carolina, English, and New York cases cited in Rapalje & Lawrence do not reflect a unified rule. Massachusetts courts (Pick. and Gray reporters) developed their own construction doctrine for omnibus testamentary language that differed from South Carolina and North Carolina approaches. English Chancery practice (Vesey) was influential but not binding in American courts, and some American jurisdictions expressly diverged from it.
**After-acquired property:** A critical research question under this phrase is whether it passes property acquired by the testator after the will's execution. American courts were divided. Some held that "all my property" speaks as of the date of execution and does not capture later acquisitions; others held that the phrase, read in light of the testator's intent, sweeps in after-acquired assets. Researchers should treat any general rule on this question with caution and look for jurisdiction-specific authority.
**Corpus connection:** Cases construing this phrase appear in equity reporters as well as law reporters, reflecting the dual jurisdiction over testamentary matters in jurisdictions that maintained separate law and equity courts. When working in pre-merger court records, check both lines of authority.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence does not define "all my property of any nature or kind whatsoever" in a discursive sense. Instead, the entry functions as a digest, pairing testamentary phrases with citations to cases that construed them. The entry groups this phrase alongside "all my property of every description," "all my real estate," "all my real property," and the fragment "all my real and personal"—treating them as a family of related formulations rather than as distinct legal terms.
This approach reflects standard nineteenth-century legal lexicography for testamentary language: dictionaries of that era understood their role as locating authority rather than synthesizing doctrine. The practical implication for researchers is that Rapalje & Lawrence is most useful here as a case-finder, not as a source of interpretive guidance.
What the historical dictionary does not address: the treatment of contingent interests, the effect of the phrase on jointly held property, or the interaction between this language and anti-lapse statutes. These gaps reflect both the limits of the digest format and the state of doctrine at the time of publication. Researchers working on modern questions involving similar language will need to move beyond Rapalje & Lawrence to primary sources and modern treatises on wills construction.
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Jurisdictional Note
Construction of omnibus testamentary phrases is inherently jurisdiction-specific, and American courts in the nineteenth century showed meaningful divergence even among states that followed English Chancery precedent as persuasive authority. Massachusetts, North Carolina, and South Carolina each developed distinct bodies of case law on what "all my property" language includes with respect to real estate, making cross-jurisdictional borrowing risky without verification.
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