Definition
A gift inter vivos (from the Latin, "between the living") is a voluntary, gratuitous transfer of property from one living person to another, completed during the lifetime of both parties. It is distinguished from a testamentary gift, which takes effect only at death, and from a gift causa mortis, which is made in contemplation of imminent death and is conditionally revocable.
For a gift inter vivos to be legally effective, the transfer must be complete and irrevocable at the time it is made. Once consummated, the donor retains no legal interest in the property transferred.
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Common Confusion
Gift inter vivos is frequently confused with gift causa mortis. The distinction is consequential: a gift causa mortis is made when the donor anticipates imminent death from a specific peril and is automatically revoked if the donor survives. A gift inter vivos carries no such condition and cannot be unilaterally revoked by the donor after delivery and acceptance. Researchers working with probate and estate records must be alert to which type of gift is at issue, as the legal consequences — particularly regarding creditors' claims and estate inclusion — differ substantially.
Gift inter vivos is also sometimes loosely equated with the creation of an inter vivos trust. The concepts overlap but are not identical. A trust involves a continuing fiduciary relationship and may be revocable; a completed gift is irrevocable by definition.
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Core Elements
Three elements must concur for a gift inter vivos to be complete and enforceable:
1. DONATIVE INTENT: The donor must intend to make a present, immediate transfer of ownership — not a future promise to give. A mere expression of intention to give at some later time is not a gift.
2. DELIVERY: The donor must deliver the property to the donee, or to a third party on the donee's behalf. Delivery may be actual (physical transfer), constructive (transfer of a means of access, such as a key), or symbolic (transfer of a document representing the property), depending on the nature of the property and the practicalities of transfer.
3. ACCEPTANCE: The donee must accept the gift. Acceptance is generally presumed when the gift is of unambiguous benefit, but it can be disclaimed.
All three elements must be satisfied simultaneously. A gift that lacks delivery — even if intent and acceptance are clear — is typically unenforceable as a gift, though it may take effect through other legal mechanisms.
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Why It Matters in Research
The term appears in a wide range of Law Mind corpus materials: property law (the elements of valid gift), trusts and estates (inter vivos trusts as will substitutes, estate planning instruments), tax law (gift tax treatment), and family law (interspousal transfers and claims). Researchers should be aware of context before assuming the term is being used in its narrowest sense.
The delivery requirement has generated substantial case law and doctrinal tension, particularly as intangible property (securities, digital assets, contractual rights) became more common. Historical sources emphasizing physical delivery may not account for the evolution of constructive and symbolic delivery doctrines — a gap worth flagging when using older treatises.
In the trusts context, the inter vivos/testamentary distinction carries constitutional and statutory weight. Many jurisdictions subjected testamentary transfers to formal Wills Act requirements; inter vivos transfers escaped those formalities. This made the inter vivos trust a powerful estate planning tool and, accordingly, a target for legislative scrutiny. When reading historical equity materials, note that courts sometimes recharacterized purported inter vivos transfers as testamentary if they found the donor had retained too much control — a recurring issue in revocable trust litigation.
In the property corpus, delivery doctrine is the analytical core. Researchers moving between historical and modern sources will find that the standard for constructive and symbolic delivery liberalized significantly over the twentieth century.
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Historical Dictionary Support
Rapalje & Lawrence do not contain a direct entry for "gift inter vivos." The source material provided — GIFTOMAN, a Swedish law term for the right to dispose of a woman in marriage — is unrelated to the present term and appears to be a catalog artifact rather than a relevant historical definition. It has no bearing on the Anglo-American doctrine of gifts inter vivos and should not be treated as background for this entry.
Classical Anglo-American legal dictionaries (Bouvier, Black's early editions) treat gift inter vivos as a well-settled category of common law property transfer, consistently emphasizing the tripartite elements of intent, delivery, and acceptance, and consistently drawing the testamentary/inter vivos line at irrevocability and present effect. There is no meaningful doctrinal divergence among the historical sources on the basic structure of the concept, though the delivery requirement's application to intangible property was undertheorized in pre-twentieth-century materials.
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Jurisdictional Note
The three-element framework (intent, delivery, acceptance) is uniform across common law jurisdictions, but the flexibility afforded to constructive and symbolic delivery varies. Some jurisdictions apply a strict delivery requirement; others permit written instruments or formal acknowledgment to substitute for physical transfer, particularly for intangible property. Researchers working with community property jurisdictions should note additional rules governing interspousal gifts of community property.
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Encyclopedia Cross-Reference
The Law Mind Property Law Encyclopedia — Personal Property: Gifts (Inter Vivos, Causa Mortis — Delivery, Intent, Acceptance): Core doctrinal treatment of the elements, delivery variations, and the inter vivos/causa mortis distinction.
The Law Mind Trusts, Estates & Probate Encyclopedia — Revocable Inter Vivos Trusts as Will Substitutes: Addresses the trust-side application of inter vivos transfer doctrine, including the testamentary character problem and estate planning context.
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