Succession Law and Legal Definition
Succession, in general, means following another. In legal parlance it means succeeding to the rights of another, as where a new corporation which is a reorganization of another corporation takes the rights of the old corporation.
Succession also signifies the estate, rights and charges which a person leaves after his/her death, whether the property exceed the charges, or the charges exceed the property, or whether s/he has left only charges without property. The succession not only includes the rights and obligations of the deceased, as they exist at the time of his/her death, but all that has accrued thereto since the opening of the succession, as also of the new charges to which it becomes subject.
The word is one of technical meaning in the law and signifies the taking of property by inheritance or will from the estate of a decedent, or by operation of law; and it is a word which clearly excludes those who take by deed, grant, gift, or any form of purchase or contract. [Quarles v. Clayton, 87 Tenn. 308, 315 (Tenn. 1889)]
